Hello, people!
I’ve said before – and not once – that one cannot claim they know Greek if they don’t know those words and expressions that puritans would call “improper”. Without knowing those, you might be able to order food – in most, but not all, restaurants – or ask for directions, if your GPS doesn’t work – although you can do these in English, just fine – but you won’t be able to follow most of everyday conversations.
So, I decided to teach you some proper Greek – please note I didn’t use quotes. Most of you probably are not interested in learning Greek, so come for the fun. There won’t be any exams at the end of the course. You might understand better how Greeks are and how they think, and you’ll see why there is no way in hell I’ll stop using “improper” (here there are quotes) language in my writing and speech.
In this post I’ll talk about proverbs and proverbial expressions that use “dick” or “cunt”. There will be a follow-up post for the everyday use of these words.
There are plenty of words that mean dick (the male sex organ) and only that, not including the proper scientific word. I’ll use “dick” for simplicity. I’ll say more about this in the everyday use post. You only need to remember that none of the proverbs and expressions use the “penis” word, or the words parents usually teach their children to use. Incidentally, those “innocent” words are only used in everyday speech as insults.
Also, although there aren’t many words that mean “cunt” and only that – to my knowledge – the word used in proverbs and expressions is the most common “improper” word that means only the female sex organ.
In case the text in the parenthesis doesn’t appear correctly in your browser, it’s the actual Greek proverb or expression. Also, although I tried to stay as close as possible to the original syntax and wording, I translated according to meaning wherever word-to-word translation wouldn’t make sense.
So, let’s start with the cunt.
The Cunt
1. The ship on the mountaintop.
“If you see a ship on the mountain, a cunt has pulled it.”
(Αν δεις καράβι στο βουνό, μουνί το έχει σύρει.)
It can also be used in a shortened expression: “The cunt pulls ship” (Το μουνί σέρνει καράβι).
Greek laws – that have been abolished not as long ago as we’d like to believe – considered homosexuality as proof of unreliability, and, for example, one couldn’t be a bank employee if he was homosexual, or would be fired – best case scenario – if he was found to be one, under the excuse that homosexuals are likely to embezzle money for the sake of their lover. Folk wisdom has a different opinion.
The proverb above is used under the meaning that a woman can trick or manipulate a man – or the situations – to make even the most improbable things happen.
Truth be told, the proverb is not negative by default. It can also be used in the sense that a woman can encourage or motivate a man to achieve the impossible, or even that a woman on her own can achieve the impossible. Nonetheless, it’s mostly used in the negative sense I described above.
2. The cunt saloon
“Here the world is getting destroyed, and the cunt combs its hair.”
(Εδώ ο κόσμος χάνεται, και το μουνί χτενίζεται.)
The meaning is pretty clear, I think, but to make sure it is, this proverb is used when there are very important matters and problems but one only cares for insignificant things. Keep in mind that the one who combs their cunt’s hair doesn’t need to be a woman. They can be anyone or any-many.
For example, imagine the developed world in an era of a devastating financial crisis, and in that era, imagine a Pope who decides that the most important thing to do is to correct the misunderstanding his predecessor’s actions left. In other words, to convince women that they need to enter the church with covered head. That’s where you say, “Here the world is getting destroyed, and the cunt combs its hair.”
Disclaimer: Any similarity with actual events and Popes is purely intentional and not at all coincidental. 😏️
3. The cunt’s interests.
“His/her cunt’s interests.” Or “He/she and his/her cunt’s interests.”
(Του μουνιού του τον χαβά/Του μουνιού του τον χαβά, αυτός.)
Cunt is the general term. Rarely and only when referring to men, some use “dick” as in “His dick’s interests.” (Της ψωλής του τον χαβά). But, once again, the general term is “cunt”, and “cunt” can be used for any gender.
Also, the word I translated as “interests” can be translated differently, too, but that’s the meaning, anyway. Moreover, rarely, instead of “χαβά” the word “νταλκά” can be used, which also roughly means the same thing or maybe “desires”. The different versions are likely due to phonetic similarity and shared meaning rather than regional differences.
Either way, this expression, more or less, is used exactly like the previous one. For example:
“Pope Benedict said that women should enter the church with covered heads.”
“He and his cunt’s interests!”
4. The adventures of the cunt.
I’ll finish the cunt section with an expression that has both a cunt and a dick in it.
“Come cunt to your place and don’t search for a dick.”
(Έλα μουνί στον τόπο σου και πούτσο μην γυρεύεις.)
It can also be used in the shortened form:
“Come cunt to your place.”
(Έλα μουνί στον τόπο σου.)
This is not a piece of sexual advice or a call to chastity. Not at all! In fact, such an assumption is so far away from the meaning that this expression could be used as a reply.
“Do you mean that one shouldn’t have sex?”
“Come cunt to your place and don’t search for a dick! What the fuck are you saying?!”
As this example suggests, it is an expression used when something doesn’t make sense. It can also be used when something very improbable (and never in a good way) happens. For example:
“I was walking in the street and a piano fell from the seventh floor right in front of me!”
“A piano?! Come cunt to your place and don’t search for a dick!”
The Dick
1. The joy of life.
“Dick, luxuries and dance, the whore’s only longing.”
(Πούτσα, λούσα και χορός, της πουτάνας ο καημός.)
Yes, in Greek “dick” and “dance” are in singular, while “luxuries” are in plural, despite the fact that, in Greek, all three words have both singular and plural forms. Anyway!
Philosophically speaking, this actually should be advice on how to live our lives. But, the proverb is used in a negative manner. It is used to criticise someone who cares only about small, everyday joys, and not at all what the one saying this proverb thinks they should care about.
At first glance this might look similar to the “Here the world is getting destroyed, and the cunt combs its hair” proverb, and it’s true that under certain circumstances both can be used, but they aren’t the same.
In the Pope example I used above, the “Dick, luxuries and dance” proverb can’t be used, as bigotry cannot be considered a joy.
Similarly, if a filthy-rich guy, with enough money to live a wasteful life for five hundred years only cares about the next party he’ll attend and the next vacation trip he’ll have, you can’t use the hair-combing cunt proverb, as there are no pressing issues he should take care of instead.
On the other hand, if a single mother, instead of taking care of her children, only cares about her next Facebook post and how many likes it will receive, or finding the next guy she’ll have sex with, you can use both proverbs. In such a case, both proverbs mean practically the same, but the focus is a bit different. The cunt proverb criticises her more strongly for what she doesn’t do, while the dick proverb criticises her more strongly for what she does.
2. Small dick issues.
“The short dick blames it on the hair.”
(Της κοντής της ψωλής οι τρίχες της φταίνε.)
Depending on the place of origin, the syntax and exact wording of this proverb might change a little, but the meaning is always the same. And, just to avoid any misunderstandings, the dick word is always present.
I think the meaning of this proverb is pretty clear, isn’t it? The incapable person finds petty things to blame for his/her lack of capability or failure.
3. Make your choice: mud or cum?
“Let’s not confuse the mud puddle with the dick.”
(Ας μην μπερδεύουμε την λούτσα με την πούτσα.)
It can also be said as the statement:
“One thing is the mud puddle and another is the dick.”
(Άλλο λούτσα, κι άλλο πούτσα.)
These two don’t make much sense in English, but the word used for “mud puddle” is “lutsa” while the word used for dick is “putsa”. They differ only by one letter. Now the comparison makes a bit more sense. No? Also, the second form is more wordy in English, but a word-to-word translation of the Greek phrase is “Other mud puddle, and other dick”. So, as you can understand, it’s a shortened version.
And since this is a “learning Greek” kind of post, it’s worth mentioning that Google translated “lutsa” to “pike”, which is wrong. Pike, in Greek, is “lutsos” (λούτσος). And commenting on that translation, we can reply, “Let’s not confuse the mud puddle with the dick.”
And now you get one of the uses of this expression. Yes, it’s used when someone assumes, or tries to persuade us, that two different things are the same. In most cases when a bad thing and a good thing are supposedly the same. And unless you like playing in the mud more than most do, the dick in the proverb stands for the good thing.
Keep in mind that the proverb can be used even when there are not two different things, but instead when someone uses a wrong term to describe something. That is using a good term to describe something bad. Not as a euphemism, but to scam us into believing that the bad thing is good.
Incidentally, a wiser translator might have translated “lutsa” to “water puddle”. That’s not wrong, actually, and it doesn’t sound as bad as “mud puddle”. The thing is that the word for “puddle” is “lakos” (λάκκος) and in Greek “lakos” insinuates dirt. Hence, “mud”.
Since “lutsa” is a Slavic loanword, in case any Greek who doesn’t know what the word means (although they know what the proverb means), the Greek word is “νερόλακκος”.
4. The implied dick.
“Far away from our ass, and may it be twenty centimetres.”
(Μακρυά απ’ τον κώλο μας κι ας είναι κι είκοσι πόντοι.)
“…from our asses” would be grammatically correct in English, but in Greek “our ass” and “our asses” are both grammatically correct, and they would have a slightly different feeling. The proverb uses “our ass”.
This expression assumes that the speaker doesn’t want a big dick in their ass, but as it’s a proverbial expression, you can still use it even if you enjoy such an experience.
In any case, what this means is that no matter how big a problem is, as long as it doesn’t affect us, we don’t need to care much about it. Although it sounds heartless, depending on the situation, it can be sound advice. The proverb is often used as an advice.
Informatively, for exaggeration purposes, larger sizes – unrealistic ones, too – can also be used, but the original phrase uses twenty centimetres.
Bonus Proverbs
These two proverbs mention neither a dick nor a cunt, but as there is no plan for a “fuck and ass in proverbs” post, I’ll include them in this one.
1. Not only genies live in a bottle.
“The whore, even if you put her in a bottle, she’ll do it with the cork.”
(Την πουτάνα, και στο μπουκάλι να την βάλεις, θα το κάνει με τον φελλό.)
This practically means that people will act according to their character, even if you try to force them into a situation where acting like that seems impossible.
As you probably can guess, this proverb is more often used when you don’t like what the person you called a “whore” does.
2. The false bragger.
“With another’s ass, a faggot.”
(Με ξένο κώλο πούστης.)
Syntax might be a bit peculiar in English, but I kept it similar to the original proverb. Maybe, “A faggot, but with another’s ass,” would be better English. More to the point, what it means is that one brags he is a faggot, while, in fact, he forces another’s ass to take the fuck.
This is used when one (not necessarily a man) claims credit for someone else’s efforts, achievements or sacrifices.
It can also be used when someone achieves something with foreign means, where “foreign” stands for “not their own”. Incidentally, for this case, there is another proverbial phrase that doesn’t talk about sex, dicks or cunts, so I’ll only mention it for educative purposes: “Funeral with another’s collyva” (Κηδεία με ξένα κόλλυβα).
Collyva (pronounced KO-lee-va) is a kind of sweet that is only offered to the attendants of a funeral or memorial service (so that they’ll feel the sweetness of the deceased and forget and forgive any bitterness). It’s made as a “cake” that symbolises the grave and is placed next to the coffin (in a funeral) or instead of a coffin (in a memorial service) where the priest performs whatever he does. In most cases, today, unless tradition is strong, it’s not actually served (or otherwise used) at funerals.
As you can see, were you to adopt this proverb in English, or your native language, a lot of explanation is needed (unless you have a similar tradition), while if you simply say, “Faggot, but with another’s ass,” you don’t need to explain what a faggot or an ass are. So choose this!
End of the lesson. 😜️
Have fun, swear a lot, and always remember: dicks are awesome! (cunts, too, if that’s what you prefer 😉️)
Yorgos KC
