Weird Chinese swearing/insults ...

Though I don't personally swear, I do learn quite a few phrases in sunny Singapore, not just in Mandarin, but also Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, and English.  The only local language I never seem to be able to pick up any swear words is Tamil.

Maybe it's just me, I don't know why, but I might over-analyse the swear phrases, trying to make sense where perhaps there is none.

The first Chinese swear phrase which I thought was cute is "死字不会写", which I heard in Mandarin and Cantonese (死字唔識写).

When I tried to think about it literally, it was like ... ??!!!!!

But as time went on, I heard the phrase "你知道...字是怎么写吗?" applied in a variety of situations, delivered in a none-too-flattering way.

It's an indirect yet no-so-subtle insult.

And it is a very unique feature of the Chinese language that I do not think can be found in any other language.

But there is one particular insult/swearing which I found to exists in Chinese, English and Malay -

...没死过?!

... never die before, izzit?!

... tak tau mati?!

Again, it does defy being made sense of literally.

The perplexing part is it makes the speaker sound like he/she knows what it is to have "died before", which of course is not true.

After some consideration, my conclusion is that the phrase originated from the Chinese language, and actually came from a longer sentence, abbreviated usually in the interest of delivery impact.

The full phrase I believe it came from is "没死过的家伙, 想知道死是怎么样的吗?"

In English, it would be translated as "You are curious to have a taste of death?".

The Brits already got a near equivalent in "tired of living", which is not as colourful and nowhere as expressive, but contains basically the same message.

In fact, that is actually closer to the more prosaic Chinese swearing/insult 活得不耐烦.

Language is an amazing thing.  A recent newspaper report indicated that as non-native English speakers far outnumber native English speakers, professionals no longer adhere to Queen's English as the standard in business communication but accept the official vernacular version according to their locality.

As one said, they are not in the business of promoting correct English, they are in the business of making money.

There may be an official place for Singlish after all, but I digress.

Back to the amusing study of Chinese swearing and insults, I hope to identify a few more such oddities in time to come.

In truth though, these oddities are only odd when one applies a certain frame of mind, a particular perspective, in the approach, and in the minds of many others, they probably don't find it odd at all.