OP-ED: How do you say ‘chickens*it’ in Hebrew?

By BEN SALES

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronted quite a challenge when the Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg quoted Obama administration officials calling him a “chickens*it.”

Israeli reporters, in turn, faced their own challenge: How to translate “chickens*it” into Hebrew.

Modern Hebrew is rich with phrases alluding to the Bible and rabbinic literature. Swear words, not so much. A 2004 song by Israeli hip-hop group Hadag Nachash says “Here, everyone speaks Hebrew/And curses in Russian, English and Arabic.”

So Israeli papers, reporting the anonymous comments Wednesday morning, had to settle on something less evocative than “chickens*it.” The consensus translation that emerged among major news sources was “pachdan,” or coward. Haaretz did a little better, using “pachdan aluv,” or “lowly coward.”

As any poultry farmer can attest, none of these are chickens*it. “Coward” lacks the crude, sandlot insult quality that “chickens*it” conveys. “Coward” is what you’d call someone before a duel. “Chickens*it” is what you’d call someone before a bar fight.

To compensate, Israeli news articles put the word, in English, in their articles, such that “chickens*it” is clearly visible in the opening paragraph, running counter to the Hebrew text.

A friend of mine suggested that Israeli reporters could have avoided all this by translating the phrase to Hebrew literally: “Hara shel tarnegolim.” Of course, that’s also not quite Hebrew: “Hara” is a swear word in Arabic