Free Flight, Free Speech

In Dutch someone who wants to know totally irrelevant gory details, specifically when spreading that information can hurt someone badly, is called a dragqueen. But i noticed on this forum that some people can get really nervous when i use that indication. So the question is: is there an international or maybe American/English indication for a person who wants to know totally irrelevant gory details, specifically when spreading that information can hurt someone badly?

Kind regards, Vincent

In my community it's known as "little person". The closest translation (besides a literal translation of 'little person') for this would be 'villian'.

I may be wrong, but to me "villain" means just something like "common criminal". It misses the connotation of cunning abuse of gossip to cause harm. But the word made me think of the Dutch word "vilein", which reasonably covers the context. Via the English word "vile", i got to "vicious gossip" which seems to mean "Mean-spirited or deliberately hurtful; malicious". That should cover the context. Now i wonder if there is also a one-word synonym.

Kind regards, Vincent

KL-666 wrote:I may be wrong, but to me "villain" means just something like "common criminal". It misses the connotation of cunning abuse of gossip to cause harm. But the word made me think of the Dutch word "vilein", which reasonably covers the context. Via the English word "vile", i got to "vicious gossip" which seems to mean "Mean-spirited or deliberately hurtful; malicious". That should cover the context. Now i wonder if there is also a one-word synonym.

Yes, but that was me trying to come up with the closest meaning possible in English when conveying directly its meaning from my language. As we all know translations don't go very well especially. In my communicty, if we say 'little person' (and I'm doing a literal translation to english here) everyone knows exactly what that means . They don't think of tiny magical elves or smurfs (although, to be honest, that was my first though when I first heard of this being used, when I was like, maybe 5 or 6 years old.)


Closest I could find: slanderer?

The word "slanderer" has the problem that the statement made must be false. The word i am looking for has the emphasis on abuse of gossip, whether true or false. So i suppose we are stuck with "little person" and "vicious gossiper" for now.

Kind regards, Vincent

The Dutch language flexibility ceases not to amuse me

The closest I can think of is this http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction ... it-stirrer

The description of "shit stirrer" seems quite adequate. The only ptoblem with that is that it contains the word "shit", which might still make some people very nervous. In that case i'd rather stick with "vicious gossiper", if that covers the full meaning.

Kind regards, Vincent