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I went on a bit of an odyssey across a few languages, and thought I'd share.
My HS sophomore son discovered that Google translator will translate, well, sophomoricly interesting words, such as foreign curse words. He is taking 1st-year French, and last night we played my old Belgian Monopoly game, in which the language is French all the streets are Belgian, and (because it is old) the money is Belgian Francs. I got a Community Chest card demanding that I pay 300F or take a Chance card. I took the Chance card, and then had to pay 3,000F. "Merde!" I uttered.
He thought I was saying "mère", referring to his mother, and was confused. I brought up Google's translator on my phone and handed it to him, and his eyes grew large, both with what the translations offered in English equivalents, and in his new-found source of ammusement. ("So THAT'S what my French teacher has been muttering!")
He then went on to translate a Spanish language insult all too common around here, "Pendejo". It, too, has a wealth of English translations, the kindest of which is "coward". I was puzzled, though, by "berk". What the heck is that?
continued…
Dictionary.com on my phone didn't know "berk". But, today, online, Dictionary.com quotes the World English Dictionary, and the 1960 Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, to indicate "fool".
Huh, I thought, "fool". I guess that can describe "pendejo".
But then I saw the rhyming slang — Berkely Hunt, rhymes with .. a word starting with "c" and that stands for "fool", not the body part. I had mostly thought about that as a viscious insult, rather than meerly meaning "fool", but then I remembered the "silly bunt".
In the Monty Python sketch, "Travel Agent", the prospective traveller can't say the letter "c". So, he substitutes the letter "b". ("I saw your advert in the bolour supplement.") The travel agent helps him realize he can, instead, substitute the letter "k" for his missing "c", and sound like the rest of us ("kolour"). But, concluding, he realizes what a fool he's been and, slipping back into his previous substitution, cries, "what a silly bunt!"
Anyway, so THAT'S what a berk is. (I had a coworker with the last name Berk, and I can't find any other meaning for it. Ouch!)
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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