Horst Huber (X) Oct 13, 2012:

I would go with Ramey's phrase; in the US you might say "you wasted creep"?

opolt Oct 12, 2012:

Wow, now that ... ... is a pretty inventive as an insult -- never heard it before, but OTOH it immediately rang a bell.

To a German ear, this sounds quite strong and hilarious at the same time, not only because it's like the male counterpart of "alte Schachtel", but -- more importantly -- there has clearly been some borrowing from "abgefuckt" here:
http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/abgefuckt

"Abgefackelt" has its own independent meaning of course ("burnt down/out"), but I'm sure the other one, as mentioned above, was in the (dirty) mind of the creator of this expression (maybe unconsciously). In that light, I think everyone can easily imagine what the "Gestell" might be all about... To me, this is almost a sexual insult "hiding in plain sight", as it were.

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ Cilian The idea of scrawny is indeed indicated in "Gestell", I think, and I love "scrawny string of misery", but then the "abgefackelt" is hard to fit in, groan! Lots more to think about ..Thanks for helping!

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ Kate thanks for the suggestion, I did look up the lyrics for West Side Story, but I didn't feel it fit into my context..

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ Orla Thanks again for input. I was thinking along the same lines, the kid blurts out an insult he more or less made up just then, and I am leaning towards useless bum. burnt-out creep. Even though the idea of "scrawny" seems to fit with "Gestell
somehow, so lots mor to think about.
I am very grateful to all of you who are helping

oa_xxx (X) Oct 12, 2012:

@Ingeborg Thanks for the info - hard to know what would fit best for the time/location etc. I'm assuming "abgefackeltes Gestell" wouldnt have been a normal or typical curse/insult in those days either but something the kid has kind of made up, bursts out with so something slightly odd would probably be good in EN too, useless bum/waster/creep would all be safe enough and get the message across but I quite like "burnt out creep" too or some variation that we do not hear all the time (i.e. I disagree that it has to be a phrase we are familiar with)

@Cilian - thought of scrawny to try and fit in "Gestell" as "Person mit einem dürren Körper". Scrawny has seemingly been in use since 1833, "apparently a dialectal variant of scranny "lean, thin" (1820)" and according to the that ngram viewer - thanks for the great link pj-ffm! - http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=scrawny&year_st...

Also punk (pre-70s! http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=punk), hood, goon, greaseball...

funny ideas here but all a bit tame methinks!
http://www.drbilllong.com/More2006/InsultsVI.html

Kate Collyer Oct 12, 2012:

Seek inspiration from West Side Story or similar?

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ petitavoine thanks for your input, this expression seems to have many more possibilities than I could imagine, I will consider everything and decide later.
Thanks to everyone to do brainstorming

Jocelyne Cuenin Oct 12, 2012:

Great that link, pf-ffm, thanks ! abgefackelt 1940s: reminds me of war time, incendiary, or field burning. I was looking into sth like hothead and found this: http://thesaurus.babylon.com/hothead
Take your pick! Can't judge myself, but it was fun with that Ngram Viewer.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=daredevil&year_...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=spitfire&year_s...
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=firebrand&year_...

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ Kate not sure who will be the target audience; a family wants to have the memoirs translated into English, I am guessing for members who might have immigrated to the States/Canada..

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

@ orla unfortunately, I don't have too much more info; the hoodlums are probably late teens, early 20 (guessing from context; brother grew up as aperson of mixed race; from the little context I have I would say he is making a brave attempt at being courageous, and this is the strongest word he can think of... hope it helps a bit. Later on the same hoodlums are said to take drugs, are without work and hit on people for money..

Kate Collyer Oct 11, 2012:

Target audience? I'm guessing US/Canada rather than "rest of world" (as Scrabble would have us)?

Cilian O'Tuama Oct 11, 2012:

@orla "scrawny" was a word I was playing with too, as in "scrawny string of misery", o. ä..., but S Africa in the 50s?

oa_xxx (X) Oct 11, 2012:

any more info on the characters - age of the hoodlums (teenagers or early 20s, older?), is the brother lower/middle/upper class etc., black/white, what is the response to what he says - abfackeltes Gestell - does it come across as silly, cool, completely inappropriate, childish, grown up?!
lumbering, lousy, louts, deadbeats (deadbeat wasters), scrawny, washouts, washed out... scallywags ;) depends on the register/character too.

Ingeborg Gowans (X) (asker) Oct 11, 2012:

@ phil and pj-ffm thanks to both of you for your input and to pj-ffm for the link; very helpful.Sorry i limited this question to members only, my mistake. Of course, there are a lot of valuable suggestions from other translators.
appreciate all comments

pj-ffm Oct 11, 2012:

Ah, didn't know that.

"Useless bum/waster" works in a US context, but I wouldn't like to guess what the subject's vernacular would be (even if I knew whether they were black or white South Africans...)

philgoddard Oct 11, 2012:

We can only make suggestions by posting discussion entries, and we can't agree or disagree with answers.
"Useless bum" is good. A lot depends on the readership of the text - I see that Ingeborg is in Canada and the person was living in South Africa.

pj-ffm Oct 11, 2012:

Using the Ngram viewer, there are no mentions of "goof-off" and "nogoodnik" only became common in the '60s
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=useless bum,nog...

pj-ffm Oct 11, 2012:

Google Ngram Viewer I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but Google Ngrams allows you to do a search on several million books from the 17th century onwards for how common certain words/terms are, and displays a graph of frequency/time. Useful when translating period works to confirm whether a proposed phrase is appropriate:
e.g. http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=useless bum&yea...

Big spike in the 50s for "useless bum"...

You can also add additional words/phrases to compare relative usage frequency.

pj-ffm Oct 11, 2012:

People can still make suggestions even though they aren't Proz members, can't they?
(not really sure how the restriction system works...)

philgoddard Oct 11, 2012:

Ingeborg You'd get a much better response if you didn't restrict your answers to full members. There are lots of good, experienced translators out there who don't have paid membership.
It seems to me you could use almost any insult here. Obscenities would be inappropriate, and so would a literal translation, but other than that - well, take your pick.