How to Insult with Style

As I was driving the other day and was cut off in traffic and just about to roll down my window and issue the universal hand salute, I paused, and had this thought - "When did we lose our ability to creatively insult one another?" Think about it. While I am quite fond of the word's versatility, it takes zero imagination to scream the F- word or issue the gesture that corresponds to it. Now I'm not anti F-word. I'm pro F-word. It packs a punch, makes a point, and sometimes a good FU is worth the amends you may have to make later. But we must use it sparingly or it loses its power. Case in point: I was watching some young comedian on HBO the other night and almost every sentence contained the F-word. I actually got bored!

So, I started thinking about insulting people at a higher level. To really, really insult someone without curse words takes intelligence, imagination, and doing so, I believe, can make you a much classier person.

Insults are easier and frankly more fun than compliments. Mason Cooley wisely acknowledged, "We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled."

Source material for creative insults abounds - look at movies, song lyrics, works of literature (Shakespeare was a hoot), famous speakers, television shows, stealing good ones from friends, the list goes on and on.

If you decide to join my cause and insult creatively, here are some classics from various sources to both illustrate my point and get you started. Feel free to modify these for your own purposes until you come up with your own.

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." -- Winston Churchill

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." -- Mark Twain

"Do you think God is going to come down here and save you for being stupid? He doesn't save stupid people, Abel." Eli Sunday - There Will Be Blood

"How foul and loathsome is thine image." -- The Taming of theShrew, William Shakespeare

"All the blood to your brain is in vain." -- Clue, sung by Frente

"You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny." -- What we said in elementary school before knowledge of curse words dulled our imaginations.

"Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee." -- All's Well That Ends Well, William Shakespeare

"I will always cherish my initial misconceptions about you." -- this is actually one of my earliest attempts at creatively insulting - said as I was breaking up with someone

"Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?" -- Groucho Marx in Monkey Business

This exchange is from the movie, The Princess Bride, one of the most quotable movies ever.

Prince Humperdinck: I think you're bluffing.
Westley: It's possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all.

"He is so uptight, if he farted even dogs couldn't hear it." - another one of my early attempts.

Here's a classic from Casablanca -

Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.

"She fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down." -- Not sure where I heard this one. Feel free to replace the "she" with "he."

"You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you! ... I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

"I'm villifying you for God's sake - pay attention!" -- Henry II - The Lion in Winter

"For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost, and loved another woman through it all, and I am cruel? I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!" -- Eleanor - The Lion in Winter