The Immortal One-Third Minute Scottish Scoff at Samurai Jack
I love a blistering space-oath as well as the next spaceman, by Klono’s Brazen Claws!
But for the best use of obscure science fiction insult slang, we need look no further than the immortal scoff of generous invective delivered against Samurai Jack:
“What do you think of that, Mr. Pajama-Wearing, Basket-Face, Slipper-Wielding, Clype-Dreep-Baichle; Gether-Upping Bleat-Maw, Bleathering, Gomeril; Jessie, Oaf-Looking, Stauner; Nyaff, Plookie, Shan, Milk-Drinking, Soye-Faced, Shilpit, Mim-Moothed, Sniveling, Worm-Eyed, Hoyttin-Blaught, Vile-Stookie, Calshie-Breek-Tatty?”
Translation:
“What do you think of that, Mr. Pajama-Wearing, Basket-Faced, Slipper-Wielding, Clot-Drippy Bungler; Mollycoddled, Sheep-Mouthed, Blithering, Halfwit; Girlish, Oafish-Looking Dingaling; Yelping, Pimply, Weak, Unweened, Silk-Faced, Shrunken, Prig-Tongued, Sniveling, Low-Minded, Clumsy, Sickly, Dirty-Stick, Big-Trousered Potato?”
Translator’s Notes:
I have seen two or three attempted translations on the interwebs, with several words perhaps misheard or misspelled, but I crawled through an online Scottish National Dictionary (1700 onward) in a valiant but vain attempt to confirm or correct.
I welcome any cunning anthropologists of that remote, barbaric, ginger-headed and be-freckled peoples, or, better yet, any foul-mouthed native-born Scotlanders to point out blunders or infelicitous expressions:
- Clype= an ugly, ill-shaped fellow; an unseemly mass or clot of any liquid, semi-liquid, or soft wet substance; a pendent disordered wet mass.
- Dreep=Drip; or soft, ineffective, spiritless or lugubrious person.
- Baichle= An untidy or clumsy person; hence a laughing-stock; Clumsy work, bungle.
- Gether-Upping=At a guess, this means gathered-up, that is, a babe in arms (Note: I have seen this translated as ‘Momma’s Boy’; I have also seen this translated as one who gathers up horse dung, that is, ‘shit-shovel’).
- Bleat= Modest, diffident, bashful, sheepish
- Maw=Mouth
- Hence Bleat-Maw=Bashful of speech
- Bleathering=Blithering.
- Gomeril=A slow-witted or stupid person
- Jessie=Girlish, Sissy.
- Stauner = Erection, Boner.
- Nyaff=Dwarf, puny, but also, yelping, yipping. A brat.
- Plookie= Pockmarked, pimply.
- Shan= Bad, mean, worn-out, shabby, pitiful, paltry; Bashful, timid, backward, chicken-hearted, frightened.
- Milk-Drinking=Unmanly, specifically, a child before it is weened.
- Soye=Silk
- Hence Soye-faced=Silk-faced, that is, baby-faced
(Note: I have seen this grossly mistranslated online to refer to soybeans, a legume native to Indochina, not Scotland; or made out to be an ethnic slur. No, the Scotsman is too devil-tongued to go for easy racial insults.)
- Hence Soye-faced=Silk-faced, that is, baby-faced
- Shilpit= Thin, emaciated, puny in growth, shrunken, pinched, with sharp starved-looking or drawn features; Spiritless, craven, timid; insipid, wishy-washy, thin.
- Mim-moothed=Mum-mouthed, that is, overly delicate in speech; coy, priggish. Talks like a prig.
- Sniveling= Whining.
- Worm-Eyed=Seeing from a worm’s point of view, hence, lowly, shortsighted, craven; low-minded.
- Hoyttin=An awkward, lazy person.
- Blaugh, Blaught, Blaucht= Pale, livid.
- Vile=Dirty.
- Stookie=Stick, hence one who stands stiffly.
- Calshie= Crabbed, ill-humored, surly.
- Breek= Breeches, britches, trousers.
- Hence Calshie-Breek=crabbypants (Note that I have also seen this translated as big-trousered, that is, a windbaggy loudmouth.)
- Tatty=Potato