Big Sound Temple

馬鹿

This is probably not the worst insult you'll ever hear (though it might just be the oddest). However, 'horse-deer' is how the kanji components of the common Japanese word baka (above, and almost always interpreted as 'fool') can be literally translated.

I've always presumed being called a 'horse-deer' was actually something really terrible in ancient Japan or China, just as being called 'nasty' was in Shakespearean times. (Honestly - it was about the worst insult you could give.) But, my dear Japanese wife informs me, it actually means someone who is so dim they 'point at a deer and call it a horse' (or, presumably, vice-versa).

As a footnote, 'Baka' was the nickname the Americans gave these flying bombs...

...towards the end of the Second World War. (The Japanese called them Ohka, or 'Cherry Blossom'.)