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23 mar 2023 · Despite its reputation as a learned language of science, religion, and philosophy, ancient Latin was in fact a rough-and-ready language full of strikingly frank insults designed to cut to the...
13 sty 2015 · SWEAR WORDS & INSULTS: “Es stultior asino” – You are dumber than an a**. “Es scortum obscenus vilis” – You are a vile, perverted whore. “Te futueo et caballum tuum” – Screw you and the horse you rode in on. “Es mundus excrementi” – You are a pile of sh*t. “Es stercus!”.
Latin obscenity is the profane, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin, and its uses. Words deemed obscene were described as obsc (a)ena (obscene, lewd, unfit for public use), or improba (improper, in poor taste, undignified).
Latin insults were a basic part of Roman life, and they are also a great way to practice your Latin grammar. Given that insulting language is usually directed at another person, it gives you practice with the vocative and different noun forms. For example, "stulte!", "you idiot!"
Derived from the longer phrase in Horace's Satire 1.3: "ab ovo usque ad mala", meaning "from the egg to the apples", referring to how Ancient Roman meals would typically begin with an egg dish and end with fruit (cf. the English phrase soup to nuts).
Many insults are based on the Roman idea of "scelus," which roughly means "crime" in English, but scelus also has deeper connotations: a scelus is a kind of pure wickedness, an outrageous violation of the moral order.
Many Latin insults are hard to understand in one way or another, and perhaps as a result the scholarly study of insults began at an earlier period than that of most address forms.
