Che palle! cries the Italian editor of cafebabel.com as she grabs her head – internet is gone again, leading her to cry what balls! It’s not so rare to hear Italians evoke a man’s private parts without thinking about what they are actually evoking as they turn the air blue.

Us Germans do let slip with a Das geht mir auf den Sack (that gets on my balls) now and then. But the romance languages win for frequency of ball-sentence use. Non mi rompere i coglioni or non mi rompere le palle (don’t break my balls) can be said quite casually. Another crunchy Italian variety is maroni (chestnuts) – not to be confused with Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni. So when you say la rottura di Maroni (… still breaking the balls), it’s not about the rupture he brought to politics as part of Berlusconi’s government - twice!

Whenever you hear compared with something in Spain, it’s sure to be on a positive vibe. Therefore if something is cojonudo (from the Spanish word for balls, cojones), it’s brilliant. In fact in Spain you can get away with expressing yourself in various testicle-idiomed ways. You are a bit lazy if you have square balls (tener los huevos cuadrados ) or are a huevón (ball-man, with balls weighing you down) in Latin American Spanish. You are scared if you have your balls like a tie (tener los cojones de corbata ).

The French are just as macho. When you have big balls (être couillu ) it means you are courageous. So take care not to go off on balls (partir en couilles ) in a situation which is getting out of hand.

Check out more illustrations from our resident cartoonist, Henning Studte