S'en tamponner le coquillard
Meaning: To not care in the slightest.
Language: French
Literally: To dab one's coquillard with it
Example: “Tu peux critiquer ma coiffure, je m'en tamponne le coquillard.” — You can criticize my haircut; I don't give a hoot.
English equivalent: Not to give a hoot
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: A vulgarity in polite dress. Se tamponner le coquillard is cited by Aristide Bruant in 1901, and coquillard itself has never been fully explained: Alain Rey derives it from the vulgar senses of coquille (shell), 16th-century slang for the female genitals, while others read coquillard as slang for the eye and tamponner as simply to strike, as in autos tamponneuses (bumper cars). That second reading ties it to the older alternative, s'en battre l'œil (to beat one's eye over it), in use since the 17th century and found in La Fontaine, where œil is coarse slang for the anus, the same softening as in mon œil ! (my eye!). The phrase attracted a tradition of absurd elaboration about what one strikes with: a rabbit's paw, a lobster's shin, a mammoth's tail, even a breaded beetle leg. The bluntest member of the family, s'en battre les couilles (to beat one's balls over it), means exactly the same and is probably the most common in everyday speech; young people clip it to balec (also spelled balek), from bats les couilles.
Other ways to say this
- German: Das ist mir Wurst — literally: That is sausage to me
- Spanish: Importar un pepino — literally: To matter a cucumber
- French: Ça m'en touche une sans faire bouger l'autre — literally: It touches one of mine without moving the other
- Italian: farsene un baffo — literally: to make oneself a mustache of it
- French: N'en avoir cure — literally: To have no care of it
- French: S'en moquer comme de l'an quarante — literally: To care about it as much as about the year forty
- English: not to give a hoot
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Ça me fait une belle jambe — That is no use to me whatsoever.
- Se retrouver une main devant, une main derrière — To be left with absolutely nothing.
- Ne pas y aller de main morte — To hit hard; to act without the slightest restraint.
- Bourrer le mou — To feed someone lies; to try to con them.
- Rouler des mécaniques — To swagger; to throw one's weight around.
- Se casser la margoulette — To come a cropper; to take a bad fall.
More French idioms
- C'est dans mes cordes — It is within my competence; I can handle that.
- Filer un mauvais coton — To be going downhill — in health, or in one's situation generally.
- Tirer son coup — For a man, to have an orgasm. Vulgar.
- Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles — To be outrageously lucky.
- Crever la dalle — To be extremely hungry.
- En deux coups de cuillère à pot — In no time at all, and with no apparent difficulty.
From our untranslatable words
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