Need Latin help. Warning, bad words. :)

I need a Latin translation. Obviously this won’t be exact, but I need an approximation for the following:

Because fuck you is why.

Yes. being a writer is a very strange job, but I just need to get a Latin equivelent to that. It needs to capture the basic attitude of giving somebody the bird when they question why you are doing something. I’d use an internet translator, but I’m looking for the correct attitude more than anything.

Absolutely fascinating read about our media and the 1st Amendment
The Burning Throne, Episode 45: Diary of a Crab, final entry

37 thoughts on “Need Latin help. Warning, bad words. :)”

  1. Catullus 16, if you look at the Latin and the various translations, there was someone who, in Latin, was very much expressing the equivalent to the sentiment you describe.

  2. Fuck was not usually used by the Latin’s as an insult, rather as an expression of sexual content. However they were big into insults using sodomy and and forced oral sex. You could go with “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo”. (I will sodomize you and then make you suck my dick)

    Greg Wirtala Please excuse any typos. Small keypad, big thumbs.

    1. If we were running a vote I’d vote for this one. Seriously this showing up in a book “I will sodomize you and then make you suck my dick, That’s why!” would be epic beyond measure.

  3. I think this will meet your intentions:

    Quia pedicabo ego vos est cur

    Wikipedia has an article on Latin profanity that includes the Catullus referenced by Murphy7:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_profanity

    And if you’re going for sarcasm:

    Quia quisque non scit formicam non posse plantam heveam movare.
    (Because everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant.)

    I can’t wait to read the scene involved. Good luck.

  4. Looks like you are covered. I was going to have my daughter’s HS Latin courses (4 years) do it, but these guys are good ;D

    1. Problem with translate.google.com is it’s a literal word for word translation if it can’t find a phrase that matches it.
      It mistranslated “plant” for me once into something contextually would have been “power plant”. I wanted the actual plant as is in a thing that grows in the ground.

      1. Yeah, I figured as much, but having grown up with a public-school (lack of)education, my experience with Latin is pretty much limited to what the doctor says I have whenever I decide to visit. And if he starts speaking in Latin, its usually pretty darn bad.

  5. Fac te would literally mean to do yourself. But that’s not quite the feeling you want. “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo” has much more than feeling you seem to be looking for. I second bother Catullus and David Drake, email me if you don’t get what you are looking for and I will reach out to some of the classics majors I went to school with.

  6. Seems like this could depend on the time frame — your English phrase wouldn’t have the same effect 100 or 400 years ago. I’d guess that the proper Latin phrase would depend on the timeframe (early Roman Republic, Empire, late Empire, church Latin).

      1. I’m told that authors of historical mysteries have to worry about such things. Probably not as big a problem in the “my gun is bigger than your gun” genre of Monster Hunter.

    1. That’s true. If you’re considering it being spoken in the present tense (not hundreds of years ago) or even in the past by someone from the present the language could be perceived to have “grown.” Though Latin is considered a generally “dead” language, which is why it’s used in scientific nomenclature (my background) it is still spoken today (Catholicism; good example). I would say as long as a language is spoken or used at all it can still adapt to the present just like any other language, just at a slower pace.

  7. I know that according to Henry Beard’s “Latin for All Occasions” (published 1990, ISBN 0394586603), the phrase “Futue te ipsum et caballum tuum” means: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I rather like that “futue te ipsum” (“go fuck yourself”). I used to be Latin literate, but that has long since been forgotten, so the best I can drum up is “Propter futue te ipsum quid est.”

  8. I had this guy do a translation for me for a tat. He gave me the translation, the full back story on how he translated/interpreted it and the ancient text in which it could be found, and a sound file on how to pronounce it. All for $20. He’s apparently a professor of latin. Highly recommended if you want it to be correct.

    http://www.thelatintranslator.com/

  9. Is that going to be something a character says or the motto on a team patch? Though I can’t see anyone at MHI adopting that attitude. Stricken maybe.

    1. The motto could only apply to people who piss the team off. Say the MCB or Stricken. You can’t go in there and save those people this is a restricted area. Something like that.

  10. Try “Eo quo dignus est, est quod.”

    As others noted, “fuck” doesn’t really translate.

    That’s the Latin version of “go to hell, that’s why.”

    Literally translated, it’s “go where your are worthy to go, that’s what/why.”

    It’s also the most likely equivalent in usage to your requested phrase.

    Also, predictive text REALLY hates Latin.

    1. This is probably the closest to what Larry wants, but if you REALLY want to be insulting, Criceta fuit et pater tuus bacarum sambucus.

  11. keep in mind that even though you are going for the emotional, the vast majority of your reader base is, if interested enough, just going to plug it into google translate anyway. In that case the literal translation is going to work better for the reader if the scene is to make sense for them. If you want to put more emotion behind it you may be better off setting the scene emotionally, rather than trying to use the latin to add emotion to it, when google is going to strip the emotion right back out anyways.

    Unless you have access to a time machine and this is just a phrase book you are putting together for your next family trip of course.
    Mind you, a scene screwing up the literal google translate with an actual latin speaker seems laden with all kinds of opportunity.

    I jumped to a monologue with some sort of master vampire/owen conversation or a MHI Unit patch ( with agent franks depicted on, oddly enough) so the responses you are getting may be a little skewed to your audience and less of what you are looking for 🙂

  12. Since “fuck you” has an understood subject (you), it’s more accurately “(you) fuck you” or “fuck yourself”, I would think “futue te ipsum” (“go fuck yourself”) from Nate Johnston’s comment would be closest…

  13. Another option from a friend:

    “Quod te pedicabo est causa quare.

    This means basically, “The reason why is that I will fuck you (where the sun doesn’t shine, to be precise).” “

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