Undiplomatic language: five of the worst geopolitical insults

The Philippine president just called Barack Obama a ‘son of a whore’. Churchill likened De Gaulle to a surprised llama. And that’s before you get to Berlusconi...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rack-obama

Many translation blogs/websites disagree that Duterte called Obama that phrase. It was more like "fuck . . .!" Also Duterte was addressing filipinos, not Obama.

What you might say is many US news sites overlooked their jobs by printing this BS. If they'd dug deeper into the Duterte statement, they could have prevented the misunderstanding -- and lost a lot of reader hits. LOL. Predictable.


http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27961

http://kickerdaily.com/posts/2016/09/di ... -by-media/

Of course, Duterte should have said:

"Yankee go home! And take me with you!"

ExPenhMan wrote:Many translation blogs/websites disagree that Duterte called Obama that phrase. It was more like "fuck . . .!" Also Duterte was addressing filipinos, not Obama.

What you might say is many US news sites overlooked their jobs by printing this BS. If they'd dug deeper into the Duterte statement, they could have prevented the misunderstanding -- and lost a lot of reader hits. LOL. Predictable.


http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27961

http://kickerdaily.com/posts/2016/09/di ... -by-media/

I think the whole point is the cultural misunderstandings...
Different strokes for different folks if you like. Speeches made for the 'home' market are often misunderstood on an international scale.
HOWEVER, note to Duterte, insulting swear words are rarely taken as compliments. Heads-up.

Oh dear, another mistranslation or just attention seeking ?

Duterte turns ire on EU, calls them hypocrites and uses ‘F’ word
MANILA — President Duterte let loose a fresh string of tirades against the European Union, on Tuesday, after it called for a halt to extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.

“I read the condemnation of the EU against me. I will tell them, ‘fuck you.’ You’re doing it in atonement for your sins,” Mr. Duterte said in a speech before local government officials in Davao City.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/145146 ... ses-f-word

if i have a president like him i would leave that country immediately, brash, uncouth, no EQ, simply just asking for trouble, politicians shld be cunning, shrewd, charming n lying through their breath while keeping their mouths closed.

Before Paul Keating became Australian Prime Minister he was a one-many treasury of memorable inanities -
one political opponent was a "stunned mullet" and one was a "perfumed gigolo" and an articulate opponent
was told " ... just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were sixteen doesn't give you the
right to dump a bucket of shit on the rest of us."

Then he became PM and it was as if he'd been taken to the vet's surgery and emasculated.