How To Learn The Most Important Curse Words In A Foreign Country

After reading this you can totally curse someone out without actually cursing at all!

When we travel to different countries, we always want to learn the bad words first, right? I can understand why. It’s so that when we go back home we have a whole heap of different ways to curse out bosses and in-laws without them actually realizing.

It’s so satisfying.

Languages and dialects are some of the most intriguing aspects of travel. Everyone is a foreigner when they travel, whether it’s us visiting another country or them visiting ours.

Hands down, the most entertaining thing about foreigners in any land is communication. It’s both fun and frustrating, but mostly amusing trying to understand and convey messages between language barriers.

This story demonstrates the laughable barriers in one particular country and here’s the plot twist…they speak English!

With Jamaican Patois, it’s not at all about F-Bombs. It’s an entire language bomb and I loved every minute of it for fifteen years. Misunderstanding Patois is just as normal as driving past random donkeys on the road.

Random donkeys in Hilltop, St. Elizabeth, AKA…..the bush.

Patois is the main dialect in Jamaica, but it’s not their first language. English is. Funny enough, Jamaican Patois IS 100% English even though you probably won’t understand even 50% of it.

It always perplexed me when so many travellers would ask me, “What’s that language they’re speaking? It’s Spanish right?” Patois is spoken with such speed and fluidity that it actually does sound foreign to an untrained ear.

The dialect is somewhat broken and not structured in the same way we would form sentences. Sometimes I think their way of doing it is so much more efficient.

For example, instead of saying “the back of my neck” they would say “neckback.” No wonder Jamaican sprinters run faster than the rest of the world…they aren’t wasting energy using excessive words. Although, that may not be entirely true because instead of saying just the word “jeans,” they would say “jeans-pants.”

In all my years in Jamaica, I never attempted to speak the dialect for fear of sounding like a noob. But I understand it fluently, which is a fun party trick. No one could ever get away with talking crap about me.

The thing about Patois is that there are no steadfast rules for learning it so you either wing it and hope for the best, or just stay in your lane and speak proper English.

In Patois, your hair and sleeves aren’t long, they’re tall.

Your entire leg is your foot and the back of your foot is a footback.

You don’t watch someone, you pree them.

And you must say things twice in a row to get your point across effectively. For example, you don’t just chat with someone. “Chat yuh chat.”

When a Jamaican is excited or in disbelief, it gets really comical. Who would ever think that someone is excited when they tell you to kiss their neckback or footback?

“Kiss mi neckback!”

And who would ever know someone’s upset when they yell, “Blouse and skirt!”

See what I mean? Even though it’s English, putting it together is a whole other ballgame. The words are there but you can’t possibly know how to use them.

Here’s another weird one. Skinning your teeth is the act of smiling but to me, it sounds like a form of torture.

However, kissing your teeth is something you would do if you’re upset, or don’t agree with someone. I can’t type on screen what kissing your teeth sounds like but of course, we have YouTube for that:

Graphic Content Alert!

Almost everything past this point may be offensive to some readers.

There’s a wide and colorful array of offensive words and phrases unique to Jamaica that would sound absolutely ridiculous if you used them anywhere else. That’s one of the awesome things about the dialect, nothing is literal.

You can call someone you don’t like a “pu**yhole” without them immediately thinking of a vagina. Instead, they’ll tell you to go suck yuh mudda (yes, that translates very rudely).

Entire fights can go down in the street with no punches thrown or physical action. You’ll just hear a vibrant spray of creative, non-literal, bad words that still sound violently beautiful because of the accent.

One thing you should be clear on in Jamaica is that they don’t pronounce “th,” so it will always be a hard T sound. This rule is demonstrated nicely in a photo I took outside the movie theatre in Montego Bay.

Notice movie #4?? 😂😂

I took this sitting at a red light in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Jamaicans also add and take away letters that do and don’t belong. It’s like a game trying to figure out which words, though.

Like, will they add a letter or won’t they?

Will they take one away or…no?

They pronounce the word EYE as YIE. But then the word HEAD is just ED. And if you have something on your head, it’s on your EDtop.

Curse Words

“Bloodclot” is like the original sin in Jamaican bad language. It came first and a whole dictionary of derivative curse words came after it.

The true meaning of the word Bloodclot, when used in Jamaica, came from blood cloth, but when Jamaicans say cloth it comes out as clot. (There’s that takeaway game again!)

A blood cloth is a feminine hygiene product.

So in essence, when the word is used in anger towards someone, you’re basically calling them a tampon. Call me crazy but when I’m pissed off enough to start name-calling, the last thing I’m going to call them is a tampon.

From bloodclot came rassclot. As far as I know, rass can be used like ass. When Jamaicans shout, “Kiss mi rass” it means kiss my ass. So, I’m not exactly sure what an ass cloth is if we need to break this one down literally.

Also from bloodclot came bumboclot, which also means ass cloth since bumbo can be slang for butt.

Sometimes I wish I had the assistance of a Jamaican while writing but I’m sure we’d just be drinking rum and this would turn out worse than it already is.

Deanna Thomas

can you please invite your husband to the screen?

It’s difficult to determine a hierarchy of all the bad words and which ones are the most offensive because how and when they’re used determines the outcome.

It’s like our F-bomb, we don’t only use it when we’re angry. Sometimes it seems to be part of a well-balanced diet. It’s the same as how blood/bumbo/rass clot can be used in any instance. Sometimes they even use a full combination of it, such as bumborassclot.

I believe that may be in the Jamaican dictionary because it’s sure in a lot of their song lyrics.

One time I was driving on the island with a Jamaican passenger, when someone on the road cut me off and I yelled out, “Douchebag!”

The person in my passenger seat had no idea what it meant so this was the perfect opportunity to explain what I find so amusing about their own language.

I proceeded to tell him what the literal meaning of a douchebag is. First, he grimaced, then he laughed. In my opinion, it’s just as bad as calling someone a blood cloth. The two literal items both go in the same hole, so they are equals on the totem pole of stupid things we call people.

Next time you land on the beautiful island of Jamaica and you get swept away by their gorgeous accents, just be aware that that’s not how they really speak.

The accent is delightful, but their dialect is a whole different version of what you know as English.

Now that you know what a Bumboclot is, if you ever want to make an entire crowd of Jamaicans buckle in laughter, just shout it out. Nothing amuses them more than a foreigner attempting to use their words — incorrectly.

And if you’re very keen on hearing more “proper” Patois (if there’s such a thing), you should totally visit this guy’s YouTube channel. You might learn a thing or two that you never needed to know 😁

I feel like this could be a hilarious comment section today!

If you’ve got something ridiculous to share about curse words or ANY words from places you’ve travelled, DO TELL!