Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος

A couple from Modern Greek:

• Μια πάπια μα ποια πάπια. mja papja ma pja papja. “A duck, but which duck?” Surprisingly difficult.
• Άσπρη πέτρα ξέξασπρη κι απ’ τον ήλιο ξεξασπρότερη. aspri petra kseksaspri c ap ton iʎo kseksasproteri. “White stone, utterly white, even more utterly white than the sun.”
• Ο παπάς ο παχύς έφαγε παχιά φακή. Γιατί παπά παχύ έφαγες παχιά φακή; o papas o paçis efaʝe paça faci. ʝati papa paçi efaʝes paça faci? “The fat priest ate thick lentil soup. Why, fat priest, did you eat thick lentil soup?”

To make explicit what others are hinting at: it is pronounced /v/, but is often transliterated as /b/ for consistency with ancient Greek. You won’t see it with modern names, but you may see it library catalogues, for example, which often use the same transliteration for ancient and modern Greek.

And if a name is ancient, or entered English via classicists, or someone is being pretentious, b will be used. So for example Basil, Rhangabe, Bryennius.

Modern Greek:

thumb: μεγάλο δάχτυλο “big finger” (vernacular)

thumb: αντίχειρας “opposite to the hand” (formal)

index finger: δείκτης “pointer” (i.e. index) (formal)

middle finger: μέσος “middle”

ring finger: παράμεσος “next-to-middle”

little finger: μικρό δάχτυλο “little  finger” (vernacular)

little finger: ωτίτης “ear finger” (i.e. use to scratch the ear) (formal)

…

If you go online, you’ll see that at least one person on Twitter has called the middle finger “Varoufakis”…

With gusto?

*Look at his stats*

*Finds that his most popular answer ever is  Nick Nicholas’ answer to What does the Greek word “malaka” mean?*

*Breathes in*

Let’s go with Lenny Bruce’s 9 dirty words, the predecessor to George Carlin’s Seven dirty words .

• ass
• κώλος. Cognate with colon. Is used for both arse and arsehole. 
• balls
• αρχίδια. From Ancient Greek ὄρχις, and thus cognate with orchid (which someone thought looked like testicles). The only body part used to characterised someone as disagreeable.
• cocksucker
• Is not invective in Greek. But cock is a dirty word: πούτσος. Etymology uncertain: Turkish puç and Italian puzzo have been suggested.
• cunt
• μουνί. Etymology uncertain; maybe Venetian monna, maybe an Ancient word for fluff.
• fuck
• γαμώ.  The verb meant “marry” in Ancient Greek. It doesn’t now. The verb that means “marry” now is παντρεύομαι, which means “go under a man”. Men do it as well though; noone realises the etymology. As indeed they shouldn’t.
• motherfucker
• Not a taboo that gets used in invective in Greek; the closest I’ve ever seen is σκυλοπηδημένη, “screwed by a dog”.
• piss
• κατουρώ (verb), κάτουρα (noun). From the Ancient οὖρον “urine” (cognate); it just means “pissing down”.
• shit
• σκατά (noun), χέζω (verb); both with impeccable Ancient pedigree.  σκατά is old enough that its original singular is σκώρ, following the old wetar-wetenas paradigm like ὕδωρ-ὕδατος
• tits
• βυζιά. Late Greek, possibly cognate with bosom.

I could expand into the niceties of collocation, blasphemy, and cultural taboos, but that should be enough for now.