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It is said that back in the middle ages, university students from various regions who communicated with one another in Latin came up with this intriguing phrase:

"Lingua Latina non verpa canina est."

There are variations of this phrase, which means, roughly, "The Latin Language isn't a dog's dick."

Meaning there's a pretty steep learning curve when it comes to mastering Latin.

Question:

Can you think of something similar in English? "No small potatoes," yes, but with a bit more thrust?

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    To make sure I've understood: you're looking for a vulgar, idiomatic saying that means "English is hard to learn"?
    – ruakh
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 6:49
  • 1
    You could say ''Learning language X is a ball-ache'', meaning learning it is difficult and frustrating.
    – Hollis Williams
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 14:49
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    What is considered vulgar or offensive and what not can be highly regional.
    – John Bollinger
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 15:53
  • What does the metaphor mean?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 17:53
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    Yours will pucker up tighter than a snare drum when you find out it's dug in like an Alabama tick on a broke dick dog.
    – Mazura
    Commented Oct 13, 2022 at 0:42

1 Answer 1

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Piece of piss is a vulgar idiom for something very easy to do. It is a vulgar version of "piece of cake".

(vulgar, Britain, New Zealand, Australian slang) Something easy to achieve. - Wiktionary
Rollerblading is a piece of piss if you know how to roller-skate.

It was originally Royal Air Force slang and the first written usage is from 1949, from Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English per OED and GDoS. The negation of the idiom is common also and here is a pun-intended example I've found:

Design isn't a piece of piss and looking at what goes wrong with toilet facilities is a good way of changing your thinking about UI and UX. - medium.com

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  • Isn't that the opposite of what OP asks?
    – Tim
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 16:33
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    @Tim The negation has the right effect. Have you read the whole answer? The OP's examples rely on negation also for the intended meaning.
    – ermanen
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 17:07

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