Personally, I have found that the most interesting portion of anyone's lexicon their propensity for words used to insult their peers. So perhaps we could share some of our more interesting creations.
Although not mine I have always enjoyed the term 'jive turkey'.
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I'm still stuck on assclown, asshat, and assjack although when I'm really pissed it is straight up asshole (I know that is bound to offend someone, somewhere).
Dammit! I forgot I couldn't edit the opening post :( Silly software.
I was going to toss up a few random signature words that I have created over the years. I have lots of awful ones, but every now and then you stumble upon new and interesting ones. Of particularly good effect were the words 'smegmaster' and 'dickmonger'.
EWWWWWW to the first one. That congers up some rather nasty images. Thanks PB!
I once referred to a fellow member of a board I was on as a precambrian hellkite. Took her a while to figure it out.
My daughter likes obscure words, so her favourite is microcephalic popinjay (pinheaded parrot).
A relative of mine is a really neo-conservative type, and I keep calling him a 'neanderthal'. It's not a made-up word, but it fits.
My favourite lately has been "shitbird", which tends to refer to a person who is an incorrigible fuck-up.
Ever since I heard 'fuckwit' repeatedly used in a Chinese film I've been a fan.
re: post #1. Got a bit of a theme going there stargazer. You know the body does offer a fine selection of orafices. You could branch out a bit.
I had a MWO when I was in the militia who was fond of confuckinfusing.
I sometimes like to toss an insult in times of tension but with a slight comedic twist. If it's said fast enough so as to catch the person off guard, their reaction can sometimes break down into laughter. Like YOU SSSSSTUpid something or other. Shitforbrains! You moran! ha ha I like that one.
I try to stay away from the ad hominems unless it's someone being a jerk in traffic (or cyclists who think it is smart and safe to go against traffic down a major thoroughfare).
As for discussions, I try to keep it on the ideas, though I have resorted to the use of adjectives on occasion. Words like "astute", "honourable", "forward-thinking" and "kind" are sometimes pretty useful in getting a point across.
I have been called plenty of things though. Does that count?
When I was an undergrad I made a list of Shakespearean insults. I don't know what I did with that list, and the only insult I remember is someone calling Richard III a "foul abortive rooting hog."
[ed.]
Oh yeah, one insult I currently use is "motorist."
Oh for sure. You can't call just blurt out and call anyone these kinds of names and hurling insults at them. Or...? I guess some people just have no sense of hummer whatsoever. Those people we have to watch out for. I refer to them as porcupines. They can often be appreciated in other ways. Like after they've had their ginormous coffee on a morn'.
Lots on the internet about Shakespearean insults. One site here looks like fun.
(edited to add an example) Away I say Bathe thyself Be not deaf Behold thy mirror Beware my sting Clean thine ears Drink up eisel Eat a crododile Eat my knickers Fie upon thee Forsooth say I Get thee gone Get thee hence Grow unsightly warts Hear me now Hear this pox alert I'll see thee hang'd Kiss my codpiece Lead apes in hell Methinks you stinks My finger in thine eye "Phui" I say Remove thine ass hence Resign not thy day gig Sit thee on a spit Sorrow on thee Swim with leeches Thou dost intrude Thy mother wears armor Trip on thy sword Tune thy lute Why, how now putz Wipe thy ugly face thou artless bawdy beslubbering bootless cankerous churlish cockered clouted craven currish dankish dissembling droning errant fawning fobbing fool-born froward frothy gleeking goatish gorbellied ill-nurtured impertinent incestuous incurable infectious jarring loggerheaded lumpish loutish mammering mangled mewling paunchy pribbling puking puny qualling rank reeky roguish rump-fed ruttish saucy spleeny spongy surly tardy-gaited tottering unmuzzled vain venomed warped wayward weedy whoreson wretched yeasty addlepated base-court bat-fowling beef-witted beetle-headed boil-brained clapper-clawed clay-brained codpiece-sniffing common-kissing crook-pated dismal-dreaming dizzy-eyed doghearted dread-bolted earth-vexing elf-skinned fat-kidneyed fen-sucked flap-mouthed fly-bitten folly-fallen fool-born foul-practicing full-gorged guts-griping half-faced hasty-witted hedge-born hell-hated idle-headed ill-breeding ill-nurtured knotty-pated mad-brained milk-livered motley-minded onion-eyed plume-plucked pottle-deep pox-marked reeling-ripe rough-hewn rude-growing rump-fed shard-borne sheep-biting spur-galled swag-bellied tardy-gaited tickle-brained toad-spotted unchin-snouted weather-bitten apple-john baggage barnacle bladder boar-pig bugbear bum-bailey canker-blossom clack-dish clotpole coxcomb codpiece death-token dewberry dotard flap-dragon flax-wench flea flirt-gill foot-licker fustilarian giglet gudgeon haggard harpy hedge-pig horn-beast hugger-mugger jolthead knave lewdster lout maggot-pie malt-worm mammet measle minnow miscreant moldwarp mumble-news nit nut-hook pigeon-egg pignut pumpion puttock ratsbane rudesby scut skainsmate strumpet varlot vassal wagtail water-fly whey-face winter-cricket
Yup, saving that one for the next time I get cut off in traffic.
Thou goatish doghearted giglet!
Here is one, but if you just google Shakespearean Insult Generator, you'll see there are lots.
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell!
Thanks OG. I was ready for some new schtick. Oi beware my sting thou motley-minded dewberry.
Jeez, Skdadl, those are some pretty vicious insults. I'm feeling quite poorly after just a few random ones.
One of the few Shakespearean adjectives I usually remember is whoreson, but you need a good noun to go with it, and I just have no memory for this stuff without a generator. "Thou whoreson whatever!" doesn't really cut it. It's probably sexist too.
I quite like microcephalic popinjay. Our world is so full of popinjays. Just about all the government spokesthingies are popinjays -- Dimitri Soudas, Kory Teneycke, Alykhan Velshi -- totally popinjay. George Galloway famously called Christopher Hitchens a "drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay," which I think amused even Hitchens, and was, of course, correct.
Because I have trouble using most current swear words (although I consider myself an expert on shit), I've also become fond of "forking." I picked that up from Suzanne, one of the Lurking Mods at firedoglake, who also does the late-night music post. She forks all over the place, and lately, so do I.
Fidel, the stories teh kittehs could tell. They're the only ones who hear the swearing at 5 a.m., but even the little one now has quite the vocabulary.
I know some French and German obscenities. Anyone know how to swear in Latin?
Smokey's heard some nice language from me back when he could hear. He's been deaf for a couple of years. And Latin would be Unionist's forte I believe.
While not insults, among my favourite Shakespearean expressions include "making the beast with two backs", which is how Iago describes what Othello and Desdemona were up to, and "the leaping houses of London, where Falstaff et al hung out.
Podex perfectus es.
The last insult I recall throwing around, around here:
...old goat immediately smacked me down for it, of course.
I stilll enjoyed it.
Oh LTJ, them's fightin' woids. Otoh, Unionist could be insulting us in Latin, and I would be totally unaware.
lalalaadee dee da da abraca pocus You're a bat!
I like Enderby's "for cough."
The OED doesn't give a definition for fustilarian, although the interweb dictionaries cite the word.
† fustiˈlarian Obs. (? nonce-wd.)
[? Comic formation on next.]
? = next.
1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. i. 66 (Qo. 1600) Away you scullian, you rampallian, you fustilarian [1623 Fustillirian], ile tickle your catastrophe.
What?
So here's the next entry in the OED:
fustilugs Obs. exc. dial.
(ˈfʌstɪlʌgz)
[? f. fusty a. + lug in the sense of something heavy or slow.]
A person, esp. a woman, of gross or corpulent habit; a fat, frowzy woman.
1607 R. C. tr. Estienne's World of Wonders Pref. 10 The country swains contenting themselues though they haue not the fairest, take the woodden-fac'd wenches and the ill-fauourd-foule-fustilugs for a small summe. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. iv. i. (1651) 519 Every lover admires his mistress, though she be‥a vast virago, or‥a fat fustylugs. 1639 tr. Junius' Sin Stigmat. xv. 39 You may dayly see such fustilugs walking in the streets, like so many Tunnes, each moving upon two pottle pots. 1746 Exmoor Scolding 118 (E.D.S.) Ya gurt Fustilugs! 1778 Ibid. Gloss., Fusty-lugs,-spoken of a big-boned Person,-a Great foul Creature. 1867 W. F. Rock Jim an' Nell lxii. (E.D.S. No. 76) 'Nell isn't a gurt fustilugs O' cart-hoss heft, an' hulking dugs.'
I still like 'meathead' or if you want to step it up 'meatskull'.
guttersnipe and gobshite don't get half the ink (or pixels) they deserve - and festering is such a wondeful adjective
I've always had a weakness for bampot.
I like some of the overdubs on TV.
The A&E Soprano's "Forget you!" is purty funny. I recently heard "maggot-farmer" used in a TV edit of Heartbreak Ridge.
I've always had a weakness for bampot.
What about numpty, tumshy, fuckpump or shite hawk?