If you search for an interpretation to get a meaning out of the command

vcgencmd get_throttled

which might return something like:

throttled=0x50005

you will find many forum posts that basically tell you it is a bitcode and that you have to decode it following this table:

^{(from this GitHub page)}

yyyyeaaahhhh right.

Finally I found a comprehensible explanation here and I decided to write a script around it, and since I know PHP this is what I used.

So, from your home folder,

nano throttled.php

paste this inside:

<?php
$codes=array(
0=>"Under-voltage detected",
1=>"Arm frequency capped",
2=>"Currently throttled",
3=>"Soft temperature limit active",
16=>"Under-voltage has occurred",
17=>"Arm frequency capped has occurred",
18=>"Throttling has occurred",
19=>"Soft temperature limit has occurred");

$output=exec("vcgencmd get_throttled");
$output=explode("0x",$output);

if ($output[1]=="0") {
    echo "all fine, lucky you\n";
    exit();
}

$output=str_split($output[1]);
$bincode="";
foreach ($output as $hex) {
    $bincode.=str_pad(base_convert($hex,16,2),4,"0",STR_PAD_LEFT);
}
$bincode=array_reverse(str_split($bincode));
foreach ($bincode as $k=>$v) {
    if ($v) {
        echo $codes[$k]."\n";
    }
}

And then run:
php throttled.php