Favorite "non-English" phrases?

[JOZeldenrust]

You sure? I mean, you're in Barcelona, so I reckon your Spanish is a lot better then mine, but:

That translation would be a nominal constituent "De Puta Madre" with "Madre" as head and a prenominal prepositional constituent "De Puta". Such a construction is ungrammatical in Spanish.
]

My grammar is far from perfect

Over here when using insults grammar can take a backseat so there should be an extra "en" that is omitted. Another popular one omitting an "en" is "ostia, me cagun la puta" which means "Holy communion, I shit on the whore!" Mind you this could be just a Catalan construction.

I don't think this makes much sense. In your latter example an extra "en" makes sense: "ostia, me cagun en la puta" seems reasonable with a prepositional phrase, but not so for the former: "de puta en madre" doesn't mean anything.

I'm now pretty sure it's a case of attributive use of juxtaposed nomina. In English this usually isn't possible. You can have attributive and predicative use of an adjective ("the red square" vs. "the square is red"), but not nomina (*"the whore mother" vs. "the mother is a whore").

English does have this construction in some cases when discribing people with double functions ("a warrior poet").

Proposed translation: "of a mother who is a whore".

[Rum]

puk gai (pronounced puck guy)

Cantonese for Arsehole!

[leo-rcc]

Festplatte erweiterungs-schnittstelle.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Festplatte erweiterungs-schnittstelle.

No onions with mine, thanks.

[maiforpeace]

Two more French phrases I like.

Bête commes les pieds. Stupid as your feet. Self-explanatory.

Mon oeil. My eye. You say that when you don't believe something and you have to open your eye to really believe it.

[Hermit]

"L'esprit de l'escaliers" - 'the spirit of the stairs.'

It's a cute expression and I don't know of any other language equivalent.

It describes the a brilliant idea you have that would have won a previously lost argument.
and you know that it is too late to use it

I know that as 'staircase moment' or 'staircase idea'. Same meaning: you've had a series of repartees with someone at a party, and your correspondent got the better (by way of more appreciative laughter) of you. Later on, just as you set out on your way home (descending the staircase from the host's apartment), you think of the perfect retort to his/her witticisms, with which would have undoubtedly won that game of oneuppersonship.

Perhaps it was some Latin phrase, for quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

So far nobody got the spelling of Blitzkrieg right.

[colubridae]

Coup de grâce

lawnmower

[RuleBritannia]

"Fromage Frais" as an exclamation, a la Del Boy.

[Dasein]

cabrones, vamos al mercado, hay cabrito.

[klr]

There's a Russian phrase that translates into "Sniff, suck up, survive", but I'll be damned if I can remember the original Russian right now.

[JimC]

Pukkukkta

A kifish term. Loosely translated, it means complete, total and unexpected vengeance on all your enemies. May you eat their hearts...

[nellikin]

Du kannst mich mal!

German for "you can (do) me" - i.e. fuck off.

[Hermit]

Du kannst mich mal!

German for "you can (do) me" - i.e. fuck off.

Shortened version of Du kannst mich mal am Arsch lecken, which in turn was shortened to Leck mich am Arsch.

Mozart wrote a couple of pieces on that theme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mir_d ... B6n_sauber

I like the expression Bist du von 'ner Leiter gefallen? Literally, Have you fallen off a ladder? it means something like You're crazy.

[Ronja]

Swedish: "Stå på dig - annars gör nån annan det!"

Approx. "Stand up for yourself - or someone else will walk all over you!"

[Berthold]

Du kannst mich mal!

Shortened version of Du kannst mich mal am Arsch lecken, which in turn was shortened to Leck mich am Arsch.

Which was not meant as an endearment. Consider especially the old attitudes about bathing and washing.