Next time you feel your irritation rising, don’t swallow it back down: just do things the Italian way and give a hearty “Porca miseria!”

The phrase means literally ‘pork poverty’, from porco (pig) and miseria (poverty).
More figuratively it’s the equivalent of ‘for god’s sake’, an American English ‘goddammit’ or a British ‘bloody hell’.
Ma porca miseria, cosa stai facendo?!
For god’s sake, what are you doing?!Just like its English versions, porca miseria isn’t only used in anger: it can also have a tone of incredulity, surprise or even wonderment.
Porca miseria, che freddo!
Bloody hell, it’s freezing!

And like that phrase, porca miseria is relatively mild – definitely not to be confused with porca troia or porca puttana, which serve the same purpose but, substituting ‘poverty’ for some unsavoury terms for women, are a lot more vulgar.