The Lost Art of the Insult

Time ^ | 14 Jul 2003 | JOSEF JOFFE

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I'll be dogged if I can recall their names, but there were two Members of Parliment in Victorian England who were famous verbal enemies...

Was it maybe Paul Whitehead and the Earl of Sandwich a little earlier?

Here is an insult I use from time to time. It sometimes takes a little while for the dumbed down products of modern public education to figure...

Aging dung dries up, blows away and diminishes greatly in odor. In a covered jar or vessel it ferments. And thus, we have your vapid commentary intra muros, wafting forth with putrified scent from such a container being loosened...

[onyx]

Keep 'em coming --- this is such a wonderful thread!

[Destro]

And the best you could came up with was the Serb remark?

[x]

That was supposedly Nicholas Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's son-in-law.

Some say Berlusconi's "Nazi prison camp" comeback was natural, since the Parliamentarian he was arguing with was named "Martin Schultz"

[IncPen]

Funny that this is in TIME magazine, which as much as any other media urinal has for the past 50 years defined political correctness

That they now lament the passing of the art of the insult- when they presided over it's death- is laughable

We should be insulting TIME magazine on this thread

[djf]

I described a woman as being "Uglier than a new Volkswagon" once, got a pretty good chuckle.

[El Whino]

Woman: You are drunk! Reply: And you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Wasn't that W.C. Field's?

[firebrand]

An actor sent a message to Winston Churchill: "We have two tickets to opening night for you and a friend if you have one." Churchill: "I am not available for opening night, but I can make the second night, if there is one."

[Judith Anne]

And then there was the lady who gushed to Calvin Coolidge, "I've bet my friend I can get you to say more than two words."

His rejoinder: "You lose."

[gcruse]

If the N word has become devalued by overuse, so has the currency of moral indignation.

Sigh.  Implication: n****r is still in constant use and as such has been devalued, therefore
                            PC cannot be laid to rest.

          Fact:  If n****r has been used to much as to have no value, then what
                    need can there be to use the phrase "N word" or asterisks?  Conclusion,
                    enough with the PC.  The war is over.

[gcruse]

But precisely because we all love Italy so much,
shouldn't Europe's leaders at least shake their heads?

One didn't see any head shaking when the French
Foreign Minister referred to Israel as "that shitty little
country."  Or do we not love that middle eastern
democracy as much as the Arab thugocracies?

[gcruse]

I think it was Franklin Pierce Adams (FPA), who wrote 'The Conning Tower,' a theatrical review column, for a New York paper. The head belonged to Alexander Woolcott.

[yooper]

This one is also attributed to the Astor-Churchill flame war (Mr. Churchill is showing signs of having consumed adult beverages):

Lady Astor: "Mr Churchill, you are drunk!"

Churchill: "Lady Astor, you are ugly. In the morning I shall wake sober, but you will still be ugly."

[Oztrich Boy]

Wrong N word. Europe has different one.

Now there's a thought. In the interest of social harmony, America and Europe exchange N words: each gets one which is locally less offensive.

And the American Nazi Party would have a problem. Change the name? or keep the traditional one and have people believe they are assiociated with the music group "Nazis with Attitude"?

[gcruse]

Nazitude? I like it.

Sort of like the typo I saw the other day.
One poster accused the other of having an attirude.

[Guillermo]

Amen.

[denlittle]

Excellent post; thank you.

[southernnorthcarolina]

I do like a bit of political obloquy once in a while. But milder ripostes can be fun, too. I've always liked the story involving Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio), who served in the U.S. House 1903-13 and 1915-31, and as Speaker of the House 1925-31; he died in office. His wife, who was 15 years his junior and who survived him by nearly 50 years, was famous in her own right: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, known for her forthright opinions.

Nicholas Longworth became bald as a young man, and his colleagues in the House teased him about it. One came up to him one day, and rubbed Longworth's bald pate, and said "ah, so perfectly smooth; just like my wife's bottom." Longworth reached up to feel his own head, and exclaimed: "Why, so it is!"

[southernnorthcarolina]

Obviously, I should read the %#@& thread before adding to it.

Sorry!

[Our man in washington]

Here are a few of my favorites:

Answerman columnist Cecil Adams once replied to a question by saying "If ignorance were corn flakes, you'd be General Mills."

Two Virginia statesman were coming head-on on a narrow sidewalk in Richmond in the 1700s or 1800s (can't remember which) after a nasty debate. One of the statesmen said "I never step aside for scoundrels" and refused to step off the sidewalk.

"Oh, I always do." said the other statesman, and promptly stepped off the sidewalk.

These were two famous people, but my memory on this one is poor. Some other freeper can fill in the names.