Not as obviously cool as the above, but I always liked the way Tagalog (Philippines) works: wala akong pakialam. Literally translated, it’s just “I don’t care,” but there’s a layer of passive-aggressiveness that can make it really offensive.
Hopefully interesting grammar lesson
In the Philippines, politeness is a really big deal, so big they have multiple layers to it:
- add “ho” - use for someone around your age to make the sentence polite
- add “po” - use for someone of higher status or age to make the sentence polite
- use plural form of you - makes anything more polite, and must be used w/ “po” with the elderly or people deserving/expecting respect
There are also pretty strict, unspoken rules about what is appropriate and what’s not appropriate to say in public.
Tagalog also uses prefixes to verbs for conjugation with separate prefixes for different uses of the same verb (e.g. physical action vs “internal” action, group action, habitual action, etc). The prefix here is “paki” (turns things into a request), and the verb is “alam” (to know). Literally translated, it means something like “please inform me,” though you could use other ways to communicate the same thing. My point here though is that “paki-” makes the request super polite.
To break it down: “wala” (Nothing, don’t have) “ako(ng)” (I, me), “paki-” (polite request), “-alam” (to know).
Basically, that construction throws out the entire culture of politeness while blatantly saying you don’t want anything to do with knowing about whatever that is. In many contexts, it’s more offensive than swearing at the person.
I love this. The closest I’ve come in English is replying to a huge angry text rant with “Unsubscribe”
I feel like you can get somewhat close with some english speaking cultures, youd be surprised how pissy folks from the South get when you respond to their passive aggressive BS with curt but utterly impolite responses.
