Mortacchi Tua: The Roman Curse That Stole My Heart

I first heard the phrase mortacchi tua in Rome in 2017, wedged into the back of a tiny Fiat Punto, sandwiched between two chain-smoking Italian women named Francesca and Ilaria who were arguing, loudly, about parking, pasta, and the moral failings of the mayor. We were circling Trastevere in a hopeless loop, searching for a parking space that may or may not have existed. It was the kind of slow, futile driving that inspires existential dread and mild dehydration.

I’d met them earlier that year when we were working together during the height of the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Back then, I was stationed with a United Nations medical unit, supporting rescue and triage operations off the southern Italian coast. UN patrol vessels were pulling people from unstable boats almost daily, many of them children, many already dehydrated or injured. The heat was relentless. The bureaucracy worse. The human suffering was so constant that your brain started to file it away like background noise, and you had to fight not to let that happen.

That’s where Ilaria and Francesca came in. Francesca was a logistician with a mouth like a sailor and a heart like an old Italian nonna who would slap you for crying and then make you a sandwich. Ilaria worked in refugee registration and had a kind of dry wit that cut through the bleakness like a scalpel. They brought noise and humour and espresso in tiny plastic cups. They argued about everything. They made the work bearable.

On one rare weekend off, they insisted I come to Rome with them for “a proper dinner and some screaming at pedestrians.” Which is how I ended up in their Fiat, learning Roman traffic etiquette at full volume.

Then it happened. A man on a scooter darted in front of us like he’d been born in traffic. Francesca slammed on the brakes, inhaled with operatic flair, and spat out: “Mortacchi tua!”

It landed in the air like holy incense at a funeral. I blinked. “What did she just say?”

Ilaria turned to me with the calm of someone explaining why clouds exist.

“Oh, it means... your little dead ones.”

“My what?”

“Your little dead people. Like... your grandma, your grandpa, your whole cemetery. Francesca is cursing his entire family of dead.”

Right. That cleared it up.

Now, I’m not Italian. I’m British. Polite, raised Catholic. The kind of woman who apologises to furniture when I bump into it and I wouldn’t dream of raising my voice in public. I say “pardon” when someone steps on my foot. I write thank-you cards. I take my shoes off at the door even when no one asks me to.

I do not curse the deceased relatives of strangers. Or at least, I didn’t.

Until mortacchi tua.

There’s just something about it. The sheer drama of the phrase. The flamboyant pettiness. The unapologetic irrationality. It doesn’t just wish someone ill. It detours into the afterlife to dig up their ancestors and shake a fist at them. I was instantly hooked. Not enough to use it out loud, of course. I wasn’t completely feral. But in the privacy of my own mind? It became part of the spiritual soundtrack to my life.

M25 traffic? Mortacchi tua.
Passive-aggressive WhatsApp messages? Mortacchi tua.
Someone reclining their seat on a short-haul flight? May their uncle Salvatore rise from the dead and tap them on the shoulder.

It became a reflex. A whispered incantation to restore emotional balance. A private, petty prayer. Not because I meant it. I’m sure their ancestors were perfectly decent people. Salt of the earth. The sort who made a good tomato sauce and paid their taxes. But that’s what made it so funny. The sheer, unhinged audacity of invoking someone’s dearly departed because they left their trolley in a parking space.

There’s something deeply satisfying about the absurdity. It doesn’t ask for logic. It doesn’t require escalation. It’s dramatic theatre for minor inconveniences. It is Roman Catholic energy at its finest: ritual, guilt, and passive-aggression, all wrapped into one glorious curse.

The thing is, you have to say it with conviction. In English, we say things like “idiot” or “moron” or, if we’re feeling wild, “you absolute donkey.” None of it satisfies. It’s like trying to punch someone with a flannel. But mortacchi tua? It has weight. It sounds like something carved into marble. It’s linguistic revenge, passed down through centuries of operatic grievance.

Once, back in London, I muttered it under my breath in a Tesco car park after a man cut across me in the queue for the self-checkouts. It wasn’t loud. Barely audible. But the effect was immediate. I felt better. As if I’d let the insult rise up to the heavens, where some bored Italian ghost had caught it and said, “Fair enough.”

It has also taught me something about myself. I am, by all outward appearances, a well-mannered woman. I fold my napkin when I eat. I send polite emails. I hold lifts for people. I am the kind of woman who keeps paracetamol in her handbag for other people’s headaches. But deep inside me, there lives a small Roman grandmother with no filter and a very long memory. She has opinions. She curses with flair. And she has no time for your excuses.

This has become even more relevant as I’ve come to better understand my own neurodiversity. Like many neurodiverse people, I experience the world with a certain intensity. The details others might miss, the tone of a sentence, the timing of a sigh, a shift in routine don’t simply brush past me. They register. Sometimes too sharply.

I’ve always prided myself on maintaining composure, and I do. Outwardly, I’m calm. Gracious. Measured. But mortacchi tua has become my internal shorthand for all the little moments that ask more of me than they should. It offers a sliver of emotional distance. A private chuckle. A chance to move on with humour rather than friction.

It is, in its own strange way, a tool for staying anchored. A miniature act of emotional self-preservation, disguised as a Roman insult.

I’ve also learned there is an etiquette to using it. You don’t throw it around carelessly. You don’t use it in serious conflict. It’s not for fights that matter. It’s for the man who pushes onto the Tube before you’ve had a chance to get off. It’s for the friend who RSVPs “maybe” and then never shows. It’s for Amazon delivering your parcel to “a safe place” that turns out to be a hedge in the next postcode.

Francesca, who first introduced me to the phrase, later explained that it’s a kind of verbal steam release. It lets the rage out before it becomes something worse. Like blood pressure. Or ulcers. Or texting your ex. It’s cathartic. Communal. It bonds you with others through shared exasperation.

And in that sense, it’s oddly wholesome. It’s a form of emotional efficiency. Say the phrase, feel the fury, move on. No sulking. No drama. No six-part Instagram story explaining your triggers. Just: mortacchi tua. Done.

I’ve even found myself editing it for context. Whispering “morta-cchi” under my breath when someone takes the last oat milk at Waitrose. Saying it silently in my mind during staff meetings that could have been emails. Once, I even found myself muttering it while assembling IKEA furniture. There was no human target. I just needed the phrase.

I sometimes wonder what Jesus would make of it. Probably not thrilled, if I’m honest. But I’d like to think He’d understand. After all, He flipped tables. He had righteous fury. And He understood the value of a well-placed phrase. Besides, there’s a long history of saints with bad tempers. St Jerome once punched someone in the face. St Nicholas literally slapped a heretic at a council meeting. Compared to that, my muttered curses seem rather tame.

So, no. I’m not going to give up my strange little ritual. It makes me laugh. It softens the edges of the day. And it reminds me that language, when used right, can be both harmless and hilarious.

So next time you’re cut off in traffic, or someone leaves their gum on a seat, or your parcel is “left in a safe location” that turns out to be an active puddle, don’t yell. Don’t seethe. Don’t spiral.

Just pause. Smile politely. And whisper, mortacchi tua.

You’ll feel better. I promise.