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u/Made_Bail 20h ago
"Bomboclat" (also spelled bomboclaat or bumboclaat) is a versatile Jamaican Patois profanity. Literally translating to a menstrual cloth or toilet paper, it is used as an expletive to express intense shock, anger, or excitement—similar to saying "damn" or "f***" in English.
Huh. TIL.
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u/Informal-Term1138 20h ago
I asked that a roommate of mine who is from Curacao and he told me it's basically used for everything in terms of meaning. Like fuck, damn and so on. It can be both positive, neutral or negative.
But that's one person I guess.
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u/_MrM0USE_ 19h ago
Same with Kurwa in Polish or Blyat in Russian/Ukranian
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u/sk4v3n 18h ago
or “kurva” in Hungarian
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u/matkamatka 17h ago
My family's Balkan and I moved to Spain and everytime someone says "curva" (curve) I giggle internally
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u/Educational_Item5124 17h ago
Or kurva in Slovak.
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u/Severe_Emotion2554 18h ago
I recognize Kurwa from KCD2. Now im sad
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u/cyrusthemarginal 17h ago
or chucha/chuso in Panama, short for Chucha Madre, basically mother's vagina or motherfucker in a literal sense.
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u/CHANN3L-CHAS3R 14h ago
No Finns have shown up in the thread yet so I would like to nominate "Perkele" on their behalf
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u/nattfjaril8 14h ago
Nah, Finnish has a different super versatile swear word, "vittu". It literally means vagina, but it's used similarly to the English "fuck". It can be used in so many ways and made into a verb or different adjectives.
Some people use it basically as punctuation, haha.
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u/Sehrli_Magic 15h ago
or jebemti (jebem ti) in slovenian. it means "i fuck your" (short for i fck your mother) and can be used as insult but it can also be said as "oh fuck" when something happens or "damn". as a surprise, excitemenent, dissapointement, anger, pride ("jebemti smo jih nazgal" - "fuck did we got them good") etc. jebemo is the same thing but serbian. its one word tht could instantly start a fight or express just about ever emotion 😂 they can even be used in compliments (despite being insults o.O) like "jebemti si dobra" (damn you're hot) etc
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u/Mogura-De-Gifdu 19h ago
Oh, so like "putain" in French? It's more of a ponctuation at this point!
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u/OrionsBeltAlone 18h ago
They speak Jamaican Patois on Curaçao? I thought it was Papiamento
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u/Informal-Term1138 18h ago
Don't think so. But the word might have found its way into many caribbean languages.
Like fuck. Even Germans, dutch and who knows who uses that word.
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u/SteelRoses 17h ago
Jamaica has *a lot* of cultural influence throughout the Caribbean, particularly through music.
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u/No_Tax_Timmy 18h ago
I was always told from my Jamaican friends it was Bomba = Butt and Clot = cloth so it was basically Ass rag
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u/ladybadcrumble 17h ago
Kind of rules that something associated with the female experience made its way into universal modes of expression :)
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u/SweatyNeddyFlanders 12h ago
There are some semi viral videos of small town soccer games where you can REALLY hear it being used for every situation
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u/Allaplgy 18h ago edited 18h ago
There's levels to it as well.
Bludclaat is kinda like saying "Damn"
Bumboclaat is "Fuck"
and POOSYCLAAT! is like "MUTHAFUCKA!"
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u/Made_Bail 18h ago
Holy fuck, Poosyclaat is such an awesome word. Gonna find a way to work that into the vernacular.
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u/Allaplgy 18h ago
It must be said from the chest, with the "POOOS" part absolutely busting from the lips.
Great way to vent some frustration.
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u/bobbydglop 17h ago
the '6 bomboclat eggs' video is my favorite example of these in use. '52 bomboclat chicken nuggets' is also great.
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u/RadioFree_Rod 16h ago
I was taught Raasclaat in elementary school by some of my very eager peers and have never let it go.
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u/SaulsAll 17h ago
Bludclaat
This was every fourth word from the "Jamacain" gangsters in Marked for Death, or "Steven Seagull is now a redneck, no longer Italian or Native American."
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u/kitliasteele 19h ago
And now understanding the word, I'm cackling over the comic with better context
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u/Hairy-Love2571 19h ago
I met a Jamaican who said it was similar to motherf*ker. So I guess OP is halfway there.
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u/FuriousMosturbator 17h ago
You're wrong, Bomboclaat is the name of a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's book - Lord of the Rings. It's Tom Bomboclaat.
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u/DivinityPen 19h ago
I only learned this word from watching Dragon Ball Z Abridged during the Frieza fight, when the crab comes in.
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u/Maester_Bates 18h ago
I'm not an expert but I thought menstrual pads were bludclot but the world works the same as bumbaclot but is more profain.
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u/Joltyboiyo 19h ago edited 19h ago
So... is "god fucking bomboclat it" (god fucking damn it) or "god bomboclat it" (god damn it) an actual sentence?
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u/HarmlessSnack 19h ago
I don’t think it maps to “fuck” in that way, it’s more like how you might just say “fuck” on its own.
Something annoying happens “Fuck.”
Something bad happens “Bomboclat.”→ More replies (1)13
u/gingerfkinjesus 18h ago
Exactly, it can be a noun, (This bombaclaat drives like shit.) adjective, (This bombaclaat cabbie drives like shit.) adverb, (Be careful with your bombaclaat driving!) or an explative. (BOMBACLAAT! YOU ALMOST KILLED US! WATCH THE BOMBACLAAT ROAD!)
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u/Boner_Elemental 16h ago
I can't remember if it was GTA or Saints Row I'm remembering a rival gang member that was meant to be unintelligibly Jamaican
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u/touchmeinbadplaces 5h ago
Haha Im heavy into dnb and jungle is part of that ofc so black guys were pretty confused when I did my Kingston town accent with the perfect use of words like that, insta friends most of the times
Usually om request, I didnt randomly start talking with an accent to colored people, that would be pretty racist xD
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u/porcupinedeath 20h ago
Its a fun word to say tbf
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u/pakingermany 18h ago
It is! I have recently started saying it out of nowhere every-time I pick up my newborn.
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u/I-ate-your-children 17h ago edited 16h ago
get a pavlovs dog reaction out of him so when you pick them up they expect you to say bomboclat or vice versa
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u/FingernailClipperr 19h ago
That’s pretty interesting, in Malay “mahal kita” translates to “expensive us”, I wonder if it’s a linguistic coincidence. No Malay translation of bomboclaat that I know of tho 😂
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u/gramathy 19h ago
“Expensive” probably has multiple meanings that don’t necessarily translate directly to English, I could see it being effectively “you are priceless to me”
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u/nyggomaniac 19h ago
The german word "teuer" is also used that way. It means dear or expensive. I guess the best translation is something like "precious".
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u/Coidzor 19h ago
Like calling someone... "my precious" perhaps?
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u/hover-lovecraft 19h ago
Dear, even?
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u/Coidzor 19h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/116vePnKt391rG
I was thinking more of Gollum,
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u/hover-lovecraft 19h ago
I know, but my point is that dear mostly means "loved" today but used to mostly mean "expensive" just a few generations ago, and the notion of "loved" derives from there; but that meaning of "valuable" is only preserved in a few famous old quotes today. "Precious" still mostly means "valuable".
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u/nyggomaniac 19h ago
I did not know that dear used to mean "expensive". In that case dear is the correct translation.
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u/northyj0e 19h ago
It still does in British English, I think more common in the North but not 100% on that.
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u/jstarlee 14h ago
In Chinese the combination of "expensive" and "heavy" together means important or precious.
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u/threelayersofchinfat 19h ago
In Filipino, mahal is also the word for expensive. So yeah, it's not far off. Mahal kita can literally translate to "I love us" or maybe "we are precious"?
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u/TheKolyFrog 1h ago edited 1h ago
In the context of "mahal kita", I've always understood it to mean "I love you" not "I love us". I've never heard it used to refer to "us".
Edit: Wait, I'm just incredibly confused. Were you translating "Mahal kita" through a Malay lenses rather than a Tagalog sense.
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u/Yaki78154 19h ago
In Tagalog, “mahal” also means expensive, but it does also mean “love.” Also Malay, Indonesian, and Tagalog are all part of the same language family so I’m not too surprised that we share some words in common
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u/JohnDoe_85 19h ago
like others have said, "mahal" is also "expensive" in Tagalog, or what in older English we would call "dear" (which means "expensive" but also "important"). So it's sort of "you are dear to me" / "you [are] my [dear thing]" / "I love you." "kita" is a weird word that doesn't translate well into English as it is a combination of two pronouns "ko" (I/my) and "ka/ikaw" (you), so it is soooort of adjacent to "us" I guess. I bet it's closer than just coincidence given the origins of both languages.
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u/StrykerGryphus 18h ago
Not quite adjacent to "us".
In Tagalog, "kita" is specifically used to label the second person "you" as the object of the first person "me".
"[verb] kita" = "I will [verb] you" ("will" is optional, tense may vary)
"[noun] kita" = "You are my [noun]"
Inclusive we is "tayo"
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u/borazine 19h ago
“Kita” is just inclusive we
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u/JohnDoe_85 18h ago edited 18h ago
That's "tayo" in Tagalog. In Tagalog kita is a combination pronoun that includes I (possessive) and you.
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u/StrykerGryphus 18h ago edited 17h ago
My mistake, I thought he was commenting on the your specificities for "kita" in tagalog
(Edited because I lost track of who I was replying to)
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u/borazine 18h ago
Whoops sorry kabayan I was indeed thinking in Malay.
Thanks for the lesson anyway lolo the only tagalog words I know are “tangan”. And “susu”. (heh)
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u/StrykerGryphus 18h ago edited 18h ago
Not quite. In Tagalog, "kita" is specifically used to label the second person as the object of the first person.
"[verb] kita" = "I will [verb] you" (where "will" is optional, tense may vary)
"[noun] kita" = "You are my [noun]"
Inclusive we is "tayo"
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u/Square-Singer 19h ago
So kinda like the word "dear" in English? It's used to express that someone is important or beloved to you ("My dear wife") but it comes from Old English deore, which means expensive, costly, valueable, among other things.
So "you are dear to me" means "you are valueable to me".
German does the same thing with "Meine Teure" ("my expensive one") though that's a bit outdated language.
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u/nenopd 18h ago
There are a lot of linguistic similarities because of Austronesian origins. There are theories that jf it weren’t for Spanish colonization, the Philippines as a whole would be a lot more similar to the other SEA countries. We see a lot of what could have been in Southern Filipino culture
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u/teaboi05 10h ago
In Russian it would mean "Swayed (his) whale". His because verb is in musculine form (in schools they teach 3 genders, maaculine, neuter/middle and feminine, but actually there are 7-9 forms)
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u/acidsh0t 5h ago
Mahal also means expensive in Filipino. I think it literally translates to "you are valuable to me".
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u/Holoshrimp101 4h ago
It has two uses in Tagalog too, basically Love and Expensive, but in different tone
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u/Budskytol 58m ago edited 55m ago
It's not just a linguistic coincidence. Malaysia and Philippines both have Austronesian roots.
It's outdated nomenclature, but a good portion of people living in both countries can be classified to be of the "malay race".
Mahal in the Filipino language means "expensive", "costly", "precious". "Mahal kita" in the context of the comic posted above means along the lines of "you're precious to me". Most times just "mahal" is enough as a term of endearment. Like "my love", "my precious".
Are you Malay? If I recall correctly, you guys use "Sayang" as a term of endearment? Amusingly enough, in the Filipino language, "sayang" means "wasteful" or like saying "too bad".
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u/longpenisofthelaw 19h ago
My wife is Latina and when we met we didn’t speak a lick of each others language it’s weird we came up with a “Spanglish” that only we can understand with each other no problem but if we try to talk to other people with it, we end up sounding like gibberish.
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u/PM_ME_UR_0_DAY 19h ago
My wife picked up bombaclot from some TV and she loves just saying it and will for sure get a kick out of this
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u/ccReptilelord 19h ago
My partner is native vietnamese, so I occasionally try to speak some. Apparently, I have a habit of pronouncing anything that's not food as some form of "penis".
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u/mrfriendlolo 19h ago
This is probably the first comic in a while to actually make me laugh out loud
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u/Hot_Preference3662 17h ago
I used to do refab work for apartment complexes.
Worked with this old guy who served in Vietnam...tough as nails plumber, real fun guy. He married a woman he met over there and she taught him enough Vietnamese to get by.
He would constantly curse in the language so he wouldn't get in trouble here and he always said they were his favorite words.
One day I was eating lunch with him and he confided in me that his absolutely favorite word from over there (and keep in mind, I was expecting something terrible or raunchy) was the translation of "I love you. "
His wife apparently said it first thing every morning.
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u/festuskilroy 18h ago
I knew a guitar player that mostly played jazz, but fell in to playing with this reggae band that asked him to fill in for a while. They gave him ‘Bomboclatt’ as a nickname, but told him something completely different when he asked what it meant (they told him ‘cool white boy’ or something similar). The band really liked him, but thought it was hilarious that he embraced the nickname. He didn’t find out until years later.
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u/borazine 10h ago
Is this the equivalent of the Latino colleagues calling the one outsider dude a "cool arrow"?
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u/Coldplayswagg45 18h ago
As someone of Jamaican heritage, this gave me a good laugh. I was not expecting that when I was swiping through panels. I've had similar instances play out irl and felt the same sentiment 😂 🤦🏾♂️
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u/vanishinghitchhiker 17h ago
Ah, the spousal duty of being obnoxious. My wife will continue to “threaten” to take me on Living With The Land on an upcoming Disney trip with her cousins (it’s fine but I’ve been on it already), I will continue to call Zalbaag Zaalbar and Zaalbar Zalbaag to “annoy” her when either game comes up in any context, and so on.
(I’m also Filipino but the only Tagalog my mom ever really taught me was sayang, which she denies ever agreeing would be a good nickname for me.)
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u/dgellow 14h ago
Could someone eli5?
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u/LCapitan33 13h ago
Bomboclaat is a Jamaican Patois word. Its actual meaning is something like "pussy juice" but its used as a catch-all slang term, kind of like "fuck" in English. Its also used as a meme for "Caption this!" when paired with a photo. The joke here is that Wife is being sweet and saying something romantic in the Author's native language, and Author is responding in kind but with nasty slang.
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u/gomurifle 9h ago
Buttocks / Bottom / Backside / Bum >> Bumbo
Cloth > Claat
Bumbo can also mean generally your backside or " baxide" or neather regions... Vagina or pussy..
Your ass..... Or arse in UK turns into "Rarse" turns into "Rass" so it's related.
So that's how you get the related profanities of Bumhoclaat, Pussyclaat, rassclaat, bloodclaat..
And so on. It's basically means a sanitary napkin.
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u/NickyTheRobot 19h ago
Listen: I have no Caribbean heritage at all. The most I've immersed myself in Caribbean culture is going to Dancehall and Jungle clubs in Brum and the Flyover Festival.
Come on friend; even I know it's an insult.
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u/Thefourthchosen 19h ago
Yeah as a Jamaican it's definitely not the kind of thing you'd use to address your spouse lol.
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u/TheCraftyGrump 19h ago
Can't say I blame her reaction when she took the time to learn how to say "I love you" and you learned to say a crass cousin of "butt paper". At least those were different conversations right? "Butt paper" wasn't a response to "I love you" was it?
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u/Solarinarium 18h ago
Patois is just an extremely funny way of speaking no matter how you slice it tbf.
Bumboclatt is just the tip of the iceberg on that one.
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u/2McLaren4U 16h ago
In Bosnian kita means penis, mahal is close to mahala which is a word for neighborhood. So to me every time I hear my neighbor say mahal kita to his wife it cracks me up.
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u/ynotvnot 13h ago
I find it interesting that "Mahal Kita" also readable in Malay. Which translates to "We are expensive" or in my interpretation "We are priceless". I think that is just so romantic.
Edit: makes sense that it's readable in Malay, lots of south east Asian languages overlap somewhat.
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u/Content_Pin_1284 11h ago
Watch yo back bro, she gonn learn "Tang ina mo." Just to counter that bomboclat
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u/WhereIsMyFknDinosaur 18h ago
Lol my partner and I had a philipino roomate almost 15 years ago and Mahal kita is the only phrase we remember and still use. Its a sweet sounding way to say i love you
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u/CitizenHuman 17h ago
After reading A Brief History of Seven Killings, I caught myself adding "bomboclat" and "bloodclat" into random sentences.
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u/Linkinator7510 19h ago
My gf speaks 4 languages and is learning Italian, but even before learning it she seemed to somehow manage to understand me perfectly whenever I spoke it. So I decided to learn her native language (Brazilian Portuguese) to be able to understand her. It's uhh, it's something. I still love just trying to talk to her in it though. She loves hearing me trying to say stuff properly lol