The Worst Swearing I Ever Heard in Spain … or Anywhere!

The first time I lived in Spain I traveled with my roommate to visit his family in Cartagena for Christmas. I was finally getting a little better at Spanish after a good five months of barely saying anything. Of course, the first Spanish words and phrases I learned were cuss words and dirty words - I was twenty after all. I learned the normal ones like “Joder” and “Mierda”, etc. These words were satisfying and fun to me because they were familiar, direct translations of the English - and all seemed well with the world.

But, on this first big trip out of Madrid, my roommate’s father decided to have a holiday-style disagreement with his estranged wife, my roommate’s mother. One afternoon something was not going well. During the argument, I couldn’t quite catch what the problem was but I did understand one huge horrible phrase. It was the foulest swearing I have ever heard, and almost beautiful in its ability to offend (especially Catholics). He said, to his estranged wife at a particularly heated moment, “ ME CAGO EN DIOS, EN LA VIRGEN PUTA, Y EN TODOS LOS SANTOS, CUARENTA MIL VECES!”

Now THAT is the worst swearing I ever heard.