The Tagalog word puta literally means ‘whore’ but is used as an expletive to express anger or frustration like ‘fuck’ in English.
Anak ng puta!
Son of a bitch!
– sounds more extreme in Tagalog than in English
Putang ina mo!
Your mother’s a whore!
– contraction of puta ang ina mo
– the strongest way to express anger at someone
– something like ‘Fuck you!’
– casually shortened to Tangina (mo)
– in the case of President Duterte, he attaches Putangina so often to the end of statements it’s like the way Americans insert the interjection “frickin” or “friggin” or “fucking” into every sentence
Notice how it can be used as an adjective:
Putanginang buhay. / Tanginang buhay.
= Fucking (shitty) life.
Putanginang aso. / Tanginang aso.
= Friggin’ (crappy) dog.
Punyeta!
– the most obscene way of saying “Dammit!”
– sort of like ‘Fuck!’ or ‘Fuck it!”
Walang hiya.
No shame. (You have no shame.)
– sounds more severe in Tagalog than in English
Walang hiya ka!
You are without shame! (You’re shameless!)
– this is said to people with no moral compunction
Example: if a woman finds out her husband cheated on her, she’ll start wailing her head off and eventually spit this phrase out at him.
The bad words translated here are provided just for reference. Please don’t take them as a license to be uncouth or crude. Let’s all be good people 🙂
