Mastodawn

Planning to spend a day walking around like a weirdo trying to read Welsh signs out loud. My husband asked me how to say fuck off in Welsh (*). I don't know! (**) But I think I know how to spell it phonetically: Ffyc aff.
(*) he wasn't being rude to me, he was referring to a spider in the corner of the kitchen.
(**) any Welsh friends here who can enlighten us?
#cymraeg

Paul Martin 2d ago

@[email protected] I'd have transliterated it as "Ffwc off".

Funnily enough one rarely gets taught curses and obscenities in a Welsh language class. There are I believe many colourful phrases involving the verb "cachu" (to shit).

@nowster oh yes I just remembered the y doesn't work as I was thinking if it's monosyllable.

Paul Martin 2d ago

@[email protected] It's one of the few ambiguous things in Welsh orthography. The "y" can be "clear" (with an ee sound) or "obscure" (with the schwa sound). Add a circumflex (to bach - little roof) and the sound is lengthened. But the vowel might also be lengthened by context, especially if the word has only one syllable, eg. to bach which has long vowels, with them sounding similar to "toe bark" (but with the CH).

LiquorVicar 2d ago

@dillyd Croeso i Gymru! (Apologies my Welsh is very basic and I have no idea how to swear. Funnily enough the learning apps don't seem to cover that.)

Greem (Graeme. Not Graham!)2d ago

@dillyd you need good old

https://clwbmalucachu.co.uk/cmc/cheat/cheat_swearing.htm

clwb malu cachu

A site for Welsh learners, Clwb Malu Cachu features short stories, interviews, features, grammar 'cheat sheets' and much more!

Sheepnik 2d ago

@dillyd "Cer i grafu" (care ee gra-vee) (go scratch) or "Cnycha bant" (ku-nuh-cha bant) (fuck off) are the closest thing in Welsh to fuck off that I know, though there's probably some good dialect forms that I don't know (they didn't teach me that stuff at university for some reason.)

@sheepnik excellent, now we know what to tell the spider

Sheepnik 2d ago

@dillyd If you don't want to be rude to the spider, you could just say "mas!" (mass), which means "out!"

Jules she/her 2d ago

@dillyd paging @nic

Nic Dafis 2d ago

@afewbugs @dillyd

(Sorry, thought I’d sent this earlier, but it got stuck in drafts, so there’s some duplication here)

You can’t wrong with some Cymricised Anglo-Saxon. In the olden days of the Welsh web, the accepted spelling was somewhere between “ffac off” and “ffaaaaaaaac off”.

“Ffor ffyc sêc” has also been naturalised.

Some actual Welsh equivalents:

Cer i grafu! (Go and scratch)
Wfft i ti

@nic
This is excellent! Thanks!
@afewbugs

Phil Thane ✅2d ago

@dillyd When I worked in Wales a colleague often invoked Jesu Mawr when things went wrong. Literally big or great Jesus. Pronounced like Yessy Mau'r. Roughly. If you need to be really rude there's Cont. You can probably guess that one. NSFW.

Phil Thane ✅2d ago

@dillyd spelling correction, it's Iesu no J in Welsh.

Will Deakin 2d ago

@dillyd the oaths in the village I grew up in were mild.

A mild "duw duw" (God God) to express disapproval, or "ci caci" (dog shit) was about as wild as it got.

Carolannie 2d ago

@dillyd the funniest comments I have read all year

Helen Clayton 21h ago

@dillyd I’ve only just seen that you’re in Wales! Sorry about the rain. Whereabouts are you staying or are you travelling about?

Also, I’ve learnt some useful vocab in this thread 😅

@helenclayton
Hi Helen! I did a couple days in Cardiff and now I'm in the North, near Porthmadog. Doing the touristy snowdonia thing etc.

Helen Clayton 7h ago

@dillyd north wales is popular at the moment! I’m south of you, south of Aberystwyth. Enjoy the touristy snowdonia thing!