Yiddish: No language does pure spite more creatively.
Ale tseyner zoln bay dir aroysfaln, nor eyner zol blaybn—af tseynveytok.
May all your teeth fall out except for one—so you can get a toothache.
Zol dayne fis vern farholtzene dayne bokyh ful mit vaser un dayn kop gemakht fun gloz azey ven ayer fis vern farbent, vet ayer boykh zidn un dayn kop vet plastn.
May your feet be made of wood, your stomach be filled with water, and your head be made of glass so when your feet catch fire your stomach will boil and your head will explode.
Zolst vern a blintz un a kats zol dikh opsen.
You should be turned into a blintz, and a cat should eat you.
Oyf doktoyrim zolstu dos avekgebn.
You should spend it all on doctors.
Gey in dred un bek beygl.
Go in the ground and bake bagels.
Tsen shifn mit gold zoltsu farmogn un dos gantse gelt zoltsu farkrenkn.
Ten ships of gold should be yours and the money should only make you sick.
Zultsu hubn a groys gesheft mit skhoyre: un vus di hust zul men ba dir nisht beytn, un vos men beyt zulst nisht hubn.
You should have a large store and whatever people ask for you shouldn’t have and what you do have shouldn’t be requested.
Du drayst zikh arum vi a furtz in rusl.
You wander around like a fart in pickle juice.
Young Ones, The: Cult BBC television series of which twenty-six episodes, each a golden nugget, were made between 1982 and 1985. Set in a student house shared by four comically social reprobates, the spectacularly surreal show featured more violence, squalor, and gross-out humor than the entire BBC output that preceded it. A generation of British kids learned to swear like sailors just by watching. I was eleven when it first aired, and like everyone my age I was instantly hooked, even though I only understood approximately 37 percent of what was going on at any one time. —RB