Meryn Stol voted up this answer. Julien Vaché Excellent answer from Jeannine, almost nothing to add. The most interesting fact about Dutch insults is that the worst/most used ones (before the advent of US street culture) come from their past as the greatest sailing nation in the world: from the 16th century onwards they were sailing across the seas of the world and their economy was entirely based on long distance commerce (btw read David Mitchell's "The thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" for an amazing recount of how it was in those days) When you are stuck on a sailing boat for months, the WORST thing that can happen is to catch a disease, they would spread like lightning and in part due to the living conditions on the boat, once you were infected, chances of survival were very slim, in some cases you could get thrown overboard by your companions before you infect everyone... Hence the prevalence of the following disease which historically form the basis of many insults in the Dutch... - Meryn Stol