Animal insults that can bite back

Anyone who has ever grappled with the subtleties of a foreign language will know how innocently one can cause offence. But even deliberate insults can provoke a rather different response from the one intended.

Almost every modern language has a Noah’s Ark of animals to embody mankind’s worst vices. The problem is that what counts as violent abuse in one country might be a compliment in another.

A Japanese woman will preen with pleasure if you call her a crane (tsuru), an acknowledgement of her beauty in Japan, but feathers will fly in France where crane (grue) means a whore.

Domestic animals serve as the most common scapegoats for human weaknesses since for centuries they were a vital but inferior member of the family, often sheltering under the same roof and eating the same food. But even here there are subtle distinctions that could ensnare the unwary. A cow, in England, is an abusive term for an unpleasant woman, whereas in Italy, vacca (cow) is a prostitute. In France a foreigner who murders the French language is told they speak French comme une vache espagnole (‘like a Spanish cow’). A century ago, they would have spoken it comme un basque parle l’espagnole ‘like a Basque speaks Spanish’, but the cow was inserted later, presumably to add insult to injury.

However, a cow denotes more visible defects. A person who is más pesado que una vaca en brazos is very likely to be of elephantine proportions suggesting they are havier than a cow in your arms.

Even more problematic is the dog, a much abused animal in Italy where lavoro di cani (dog’s work) indicates a job which has been done badly, and a figlio di un cane is a son of a bitch. The Finnish dog, however, embodies reliability, while in Spain a dirty old man is a dog.

The cat, on the other hand, gets off rather lightly, symbolising throughout Europe a caustic female. Britain also uses the term ‘fat cat’ for the over-indulged, complacent business person.

Pigs figure large at the European dinner table to illustrate a messy eater, although English takes it a stage further to refer to an obstinate person. French pigs are generally supposed to have dirty minds; although a glutton in England is a pig, in Finland he is more likely to be a wolf, and in Germany an alter Geier (old vulture).

You are on safe ground calling a brainless fool a donkey in Spain, Germany, France and Britain, and a sheep symbolises stupidity in most countries, but in Finland a benevolent soul is as kind as a sheep.

Certain birds, too tend to be a universal insult for the intellectually challenged: chickens in Finland, geese in Germany and Italy and woodcocks (becasse) in France, but don’t be offended if an English or a French woman calls you a duck or canard, a term of endearment among the elderly.

A fox is consistently sly, but if a German compares you to a nasse Fuchs it is your personal aroma rather than your guile which he is endeavouring to indicate.

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