Language ! (3) Basic insults and swear words

Trou-du-cul
/tʁu dy ky/

Trrroo dü kü. Ass-hole.

The plural is a tricky orthographic challenge. I would say trous-du-cul (because there cannot be more than one hole per ass)
There is no way I could ever put it better than this : 

Useless (bad) word of the day (2)

Jean-foutre

/ʒanfutʁ/
dJ-ah footrr The d is here to explain that you are suppose to pronounce the J with clicking your tongue to your teeth before, that is, without producing the sound 'd'.

Jean stands for John or any very usual name. Foutre means uh... semen. Not a very polite word. A Jean-foutre would be a useless jerk. Totally outdated.

The insult is typically used by a well-established, slightly overweigt bourgeois who loses his temper, in a mid-Tewentieth century movie.

'There is no way you are seeing this Jean-foutre again, young lady !'

Language ! (2) Basic insults and swear words

Con

/kɔ̃/
 K-on

 That's a tough one to pronounce. Try using the sound in 'wrong', take out the wr- and the g. You're close. Then, try putting your lips in the shape of a 'o' and letting the air go through your nose. I know, it's weird. Nasal vowels...

K-on. Make sure to put an explosive K at the beginning, it does half the job. 

Con can mean anything from 'idiot' to 'asshole' or 'dumb ass'.

But the actual definition says con means the female sex organ. 

It is in the dictionary. I looked it up, I remember quite well, in second grade, with some of my fellow classmates, like everybody else (isn't it precisely what dictionaries are for anyway?). 
I remember feeling disappointed. What did that have to do with our good old insult, that we hear everywhere ? Why on earth would it be an insult ? Nobody uses the many words that exist to describe the male anatomy in French as in insult, do they ? (Though, you could say someone is con comme une bite, literally, 'dumb as a dick' which comes out as redundant way to make the gender issue even. But I didn't know that back then ; my bad words skills came to me later).

Still, it has continuously puzzled me. It's probably a question of time, I thought afterwards. Bad words do age, and they get milder and milder with time. The meaning that's still in the dictionary hasn't been used in decades, and the world that was once as shocking as your c-word slowly became a familiar friend that everybody uses.

We use it a lot : 'What a con, this one !'

- and occasionally apply it to ourselves : 'What a con, I forgot the milk again !'

- we can feminize it : conne K-oh-nnuh 'What a conne, I forgot the milk !' (which is ironic again, considering the etymology)

- or use it with a suffix : connard (m), connasse (f), without really altering the meaning. Only it makes it a little more aggressive. 'That was a red light, connard !' (note that the last d is silent)

Occasionally used by the highest moral authorities (though not without a good deal of media turmoil), like in Casse toi alors, pauv'con, namely, 'Beat it then, you asshole'. The famous sentence, which has since turned into a gimmick, was uttered in public and in front of the cameras by Nicolas Sarkozy, then serving as president of our beautiful republic, and directed to a guy who aggressively refused to shake his hand.

Language ! (1) Basic insults and swear words

Pardon my French... I love to swear.

Let me be clear. I don't walk around insulting people, but I like the savor of a good old slang word in my mouth. Let's start simple.

Gros mot

/ɡʁo mo/
grrow mow (let's assume to this point you got my point that the troublesome french 'r' will be spelled rrr) 

Big word, literally.
Bad word. So, in French, a bad word is a big word. It's a little childish. Big sounds impressive, when you are six years old. It even sounds cool, doesn't it ? 
 
'Wait, Mum, did you just say a gros mot !?'

 

I like that there is no morals in it, it' s more about the lack of elegance.
In my opinion, there are no bad words, just ill-chosen ones.



Merde

/mɛʁd/
Meh-rrrd the first 'e' sounds like the sound in elEctric, the last 'e' is silent.

 

Shit. Interjection. Basic, level 1 slang. Used everywhere. 'Merde !', 'Merde de merde !'
Can be used as a noun : une merde, something/someone of really low value, a piece if shit. Very disdainful. 'You are a really a merde.' 'It is de la merde'
To be in the merde : to be in deep shit.
Has been turned into a verb : merder (meh-rr-day) means to make a mess, to fail. 'Don't go merder, this time !'
Emmerder (uh-meh-rr-day)  is nice, because it literally means to coat someone in shit. It means to annoy deeply, to piss off someone. Directed to someone it's very rude. Tu m'emmerdes can be meant nicely, but je t'emmerde is agressive.
S'emmerder means to be bored to death.
Démerder/Se démerder (day-meh-rr-day) is the opposite : to come out of the shit you were in. To cope with, to manage. 'Démerde yourself.'
Merdeux : (meh-rrduh) shit-ed, as in a diaper full of shit. as a adjective, for someone who feels guilty or bad (to feel merdeux) or as a noun for someone too young for the job (a little merdeux)
Merdique (meh-rr-dick) is my absolute favorite : shitty. the -ique termination has something exotic in it. Something elegant. it totally sounds like something Katharine Hepburn would say. (isn't that the definition of elegance ?)