Words by

Valur Grettisson

Icelanders, like the rest of the world, have been following the news about former TV villain turned former White House staffer, Omarosa Manigault-Newman, and her new tell-all book about her time with the QAnon-superhero Donald Trump. Of course, Trump gracefully rejected Omarosa’s criticism, calling her a ‘lowlife’ in return. This word actually sounds somewhat safe as an insult in the English language. That said, when it hit the headlines in Iceland, it was quite the contrary. Lowlife in Icelandic translates to ‘Skítseiði’, which translates back to English as ‘shitfingerling’. The word basically combines shit and a baby fish, and you don’t use it in Iceland unless you want to end up in a knife fight.

Here’s another use of lowlife: