Israeli reporters, in turn, faced their own challenge: How to translate \u201cchickens*it\u201d into Hebrew.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0Hadag Nachash<\/a>\u00a0says \u201cHere, everyone speaks Hebrew\/And curses in Russian, English and Arabic.\u201d<\/p>\n So Israeli papers, reporting the anonymous comments Wednesday morning, had to settle on something less evocative than \u201cchickens*it.\u201d The consensus translation that emerged among major news sources was \u201cpachdan,\u201d or coward. Haaretz did a little better, using \u201cpachdan aluv,\u201d or \u201clowly coward.\u201d<\/p>\n As any poultry farmer can attest, none of these are chickens*it. \u201cCoward\u201d lacks the crude, sandlot insult quality that \u201cchickens*it\u201d conveys. \u201cCoward\u201d is what you\u2019d call someone before a duel. \u201cChickens*it\u201d is what you\u2019d call someone before a bar fight.<\/p>\n To compensate, Israeli news articles put the word, in English, in their articles, such that \u201cchickens*it\u201d is clearly visible in the opening paragraph, running counter to the Hebrew text.<\/p>\n A friend of mine suggested that Israeli reporters could have avoided all this by translating the phrase to Hebrew literally: \u201cHara shel tarnegolim.\u201d Of course, that\u2019s also not quite Hebrew: \u201cHara\u201d is a swear word in Arabic<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/www.jta.org\/2014\/10\/29\/news-opinion\/politics\/how-do-you-say-chickenshit-in-hebrew#ixzz3HceLrJyU<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")