Historical insults

[zizzer]

I'll start.

From "The Wisdom of Confucius" edited and translated by Lin Yutang, copyright 1938, page 28.

"As a young boy, you were unruly; when grown you have accomplished nothing, and now in your old age you refuse to die. You are a thief!"

Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy today ... humor me.

[WilliamPitt]

1. Of a different sort

Winston Churchill was inebriated at a social gathering when he commented upon the less-than-attractive physicalities of a woman in attendance. Basically, he called her ugly.

"Mr. Churchill," cried the woman in outrage, "you're drunk!"

"Yes, Madam," replied Winston, "but tomorrow I will be sober."

[zizzer]

2. Now that's the idea!

Anyone have a copy of the "stupid rant".

"Your so stupid! Your rock stupid. Black hole sucking smart out of the universe stupid ..."

I love that one.

[WilliamPitt]

32. Here you go: The Ultimate Flame

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. Don't you know that you are pathetic? You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away.

You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Try to edit your writing of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.

On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn't really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us "normal" people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known, that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn't have been "right". Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally Not Good.

http://www.ultimateflame.com/

[SOteric]

3. An exchange between

Churchill and Lady Astor:

'Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee.’
‘Madame,’ replied Churchill, ‘If I were your husband, I would drink it.'

[zizzer]

4. Niicceee.

Love yer avatar BTW. That's the wizard from Wizards right?

[SOteric]

6. Thanks,

Yes. It's the wizard Avatar from Wizards.

So, the avatar Avatar is my avatar. :7

[zizzer]

7. Avatar the avatar

the wizard from Wizards! HAH!

Maybe we should start a wizards thread! What's that movie with Debbie Harry ... it's animated from the same time period?

[SiobhanClancy]

9. Another one from Churchill...speaking of Stanley Baldwin

"He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."

[zizzer]

13. That Churchill

He was a funny guy.

Anyone else ever notice that all babies look just like him?

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

40. W.C. Fields' spin on the same concept

Pretty sure it's from "The Bank Dick":

Outraged bluenose: "You're drunk!"

Fields: "And you're crazy. But I'll be sober tomorrow, and you'll be crazy the rest of your life."

Much better delivered in his nasal drawl than read on paper. Wonder who used it first, Churchill or Fields?

My favorite: Dorothy Parker and Clare Booth Luce are about to enter a room at the same time. As she steps aside to let Parker go first Luce smirks, "Age before beauty."

As she sweeps past Luce into the room Parker answers, "Pearls before swine."

Love it!

[av8rdave]

5. chalk my favorite up to Jim Hightower

Bush: Born on third base, thought he hit a triple."

av8rdave

[zizzer]

8. OK, I don't get it.

Maybe I'm dense. I've been called worse.

Please explain.

[Bunny]

10. Duhbya.

Silver spoon, inflated sense of self, etc.

[VelmaD]

12. Basically...

he was born into a life of privilege and is under the mistaken impression that he "earned" them.

[zizzer]

14. Yeah ... I get it now

I was just looking at it all too literaly.

Ah, the image of Barbara squating over a dirty third base and dropping Dumya on head was just too much for my poor brain to get past there briefly.

[asthmaticeog]

21. THAT'S funny!

*spits coffee all over keyboard*

Good thing for you I'm at work! If I were at home, I'd have to replace this keyboard with my OWN money!

[SiobhanClancy]

11. H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding...

"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."




Does this sound like anybody else we know?:)

[zizzer]

15. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Some good old fashioned vitriol!

[pagerbear]

18. H.L. Mencken! He's my man!

[CanuckAmok]

16. Captain Haddock wrote the book on insults!

Well, his creator, Herge did, I suppose...

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/3688/haddock.htm

[zizzer]

19. Odd-toed-ungulate

Damn ... He called you a three toed horse!

HAHAHA.

I've been looking for French versions of these for my son. He's getting to an age where he could appreciate Tintin and he's in a French school. No luck yet. I tried my local comic book store but have not heard back. Any pointers would be appreciated.

[CanuckAmok]

20. There are many on Ebay...

Be careful you don't accidentally order one of the x-rated parodies!

I grew up on Tintin... great stuff!

About Haddock's insults, Michael Farr's book, "Tintin: The Complete Companion" says this:

"...According to Herge, the idea of the irrelevant insult stuck with him several years earlier, when he witnessed an insult between a shopkeeper and a customer. After a long rally of insults, the shopkeeper offered the ultimate unanswerable insult--"You Four Powers Pact!"--and so had the last word, game set and match. This extraordinary term of abuse was based on the (unfair to Belgium) Four Powers Pact signed on July 15, 1933, between Britain, France, Germany and Italy...."

[SiobhanClancy]

17. Harry Truman on Nixon

"Richard Nixon is a no-good lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in."

[Westegg]

22. From a book of insults I read long ago...

....This dude from the 18th century was replying to a letter sent by a guy he disliked. He wrote:

"I am in the smallest room in the house. Your letter is in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. That was Voltaire...(n/t)

[Westegg]

26. Thanks! Man, I dig that Voltaire!

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Another from Churchill:

Referring to a prominent critic of his, he said: "He has all of the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire."

[Westegg]

24. Another classic---maybe from Dorothy Parker?

Let's assume it is. This young woman holds the door for Dorothy, and says, with faux politeness, "Age before beauty." So Dorothy sweeps through the door, muttering, "Pearls before swine..."

[terrya]

28. It was Dorothy Parker. She said it to Clare Booth Luce.

Terry

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

44. D'oh!

I posted that too, before I'd read all the way through the thread and found you'd posted it already. Still, it's a good'un.

Here's another Parker jab, from her review of a play starring Billie Burke: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B."

[Westegg]

27. From G.B. Shaw...

Not so much an insult as a curmudgeon's appraisal. He wrote:

"The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me."

[GoddessOfGuinness]

29. "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Mark Twain

[terrya]

30. Dorothy Parker on being told that Calvin Coolidge died...

"But how can they tell?"

Terry

[Westegg]

31. Thanks. You made me laugh. Not easy these days.

[geniph]

33. Some of my favorites

Dorothy Parker: This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

more Parker: If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

yet more Parker: If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

David Lloyd George (on Herbert Samuel): When they circumcised him, they threw away the wrong bit.

Mark Twain: You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of a hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.

more Twain: Last week I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that statement.

Jay Leno('s writers): So, Wesley Clark is running for president. Pretty amazing guy. Four star general, first in his class at West Point, supreme commander of NATO, saw combat in Vietnam, won the bronze star, silver star, the purple heart for being wounded in battle. See, I'm no political expert, but that sounds pretty good next to choking on a pretzel, falling off a scooter and dropping the dog.

Oscar Levant (on a politician): He'll doublecross that bridge when he comes to it.

Groucho Marx: I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. Unfortunately, this wasn't it.

H.L. Mencken: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

more Mencken: In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

yet more Mencken: Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule— and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Will Rogers: Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

Doc Searles: I don't dislike President Bush. I do, however, regret that the man cannot, as Johnny Carson once said of a lesser comic, "improvise a fart at a bean party." Without a script, he's lost, able only to churn and rechurn some carefully rehearsed talking points.

Bill Watterson: Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

[SiobhanClancy]

34. Some insulting reviews of the Gettysburg Address....

by some newspapers of the day:

"We pass over the silly remarks of the president. We are willing for the sake of the nation that the veil of oblivion be dropped over them."
–The Harrisburg Patriot-Union

"Ignorant rudeness that insults the dead; silly, flat and dishwatery utterances."
–The Chicago Times

"Ludicrous, dull and commonplace."
–The London Times

I read these to my friend Jill,and told her to guess what presidential address they were in reference to....she said it was a no-brainer,couldn't be anything but Bush's SOTU:)

[Westegg]

35. Instead (ironically), the veil of oblivion was dropped over Harrisburg...

You're some kinda genius, Siobhan, for digging these quotes out. By the way, do you know that there is a white cat who walks obsessively across the bottom of your screen? He looks up to no good.

[SiobhanClancy]

39. That cat is a Calico-In-Disguise Anti-Ashcroft Bot....

mum's the word:)

[NoPasaran]

36. Churchill again

On Clement Atlee: A modest man, who has much to be modest about

[mitchum]

37. Gaius Caligula making his horse a senator...

the greatest fuck you of all time

[The Magistrate]

38. Possibly My Favorite, Sir

Between Disraeli and Gladstone:

"You, Sir, will die on the gallows, or of a loathesome disease."

"That would depend, Sir, upon whether I should embrace your principles or your mistress."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[WilliamPitt]

43. Another from Disraeli

Benjamin was hating the boring company at table during a dinner party that he leapt up to flee the room before it was time. The hostess said, "Sir, we are about to have champagne."

"At last," said Disraeli as he slumped back into his chair, "something warm."

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. An excellent one from Dr. Samuel Johnson...

Eminent 18th century critic, lexicographer, and man of letters, to an author whose work he had been asked an opinion of: "Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good."

[NoPasaran]

42. Edmund Ruffin

On South Carolina after it had seceeded from the Union:
"Too small for a republic; too large for a lunatic asylum."

[qwertyMike]

45. Not really sure if this an insult?

"Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down in the charts.
With love,
John Lennon"
November 25, 1969"

Is that a Kerry thing?
Or an Irismnan's dig at a fat German Queeen?


We'll nivver know

[central scrutinizer]

46. Re: Telecommunications act of 1996

by Steve Russell
American Reporter Correspondent
San Antonio, Texas
2/8/96
censorship
free


THE X-ON CONGRESS: INDECENT COMMENT ON AN INDECENT SUBJECT
by Steve Russell
American Reporter Correspondent


SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- You motherfuckers in Congress have
dropped over the edge of the earth this time. I understand
that very few of the swarm of high dollar lobbyists around
the Telecommunications Bill had any interest in content
regulation -- they were just trying to get their clients an
opportunity to dip their buckets in the money stream that
cyberspace may become -- but the public interest sometimes
needs a little attention. Keeping your eyes on what big
money wants, you have sold out the First Amendment.

First, some basics. If your children walked by a public
park and heard some angry sumbitches referring to Congress
as "the sorriest bunch of cocksuckers ever to sell out the
First Amendment" or suggesting that "the only reason to run
for Congress these days is to suck the lobbyists' dicks and
fuck the people who sent you there," no law would be
violated (assuming no violation of noise ordinances or
incitement to breach the peace). If your children did not
wish to hear that language, they could only walk away.
Thanks to your heads-up-your-ass dereliction of duty, if
they read the same words in cyberspace, they could call the
FBI!

Cyberspace is the village green for the whole world. It is
the same as the village green our Founders knew as the place
to rouse the rabble who became Americans, but it is also
different. Your blind acceptance of the dubious -- make
that dogass dumb -- idea that children are harmed by hearing
so-called dirty words has created some pretty stupid
regulations without shutting down public debate, but those
stupid regulations will not import to cyberspace without
consequences that even the public relations whores in
Congress should find unacceptable.

In cyberspace, there is no time. A posted message stays
posted until it is wiped. Therefore, there is no way to
indulge the fiction that children do not stay up late or
cannot program a VCR.

In cyberspace, there is no place. The "community standards"
are those of the whole world. An upload from Amsterdam can
become a download in Idaho. By trying to regulate obscenity
and indecency on the Internet, you have reduced the level of
expression allowed consenting adults to that of the most
anal retentive blueballed fuckhead U.S. attorney in the
country. The Internet is everywhere you can plug in a
modem. Call Senator Exon an "ignorant motherfucker" in
Lincoln, Nebraska and find yourself prosecuted in Bibleburg,
Mississippi.

In cyberspace, you cannot require the convenience store to
sell Hustler in a white sleeve. The functional equivalent
is gatekeeper software, to which no civil libertarian has
voiced any objection. Gatekeeper software cannot be made
foolproof, but can you pandering pissants not see that any
kid smart enough to hack into a Website is also smart enough
to get his hands on a hard copy of Hustler if he really
wants one?

In cyberspace, there is the illusion of anonymity but no
real privacy. It is theoretically possible for any Internet
server to seine through all messages for key words (although
it seems likely the resulting slowdown would be noticeable).
Perhaps some of you read about America On Line's attempt to
keep children from reading the word "breast?" An apparently
unforeseen consequence was the shutdown of a discussion
group of breast cancer survivors. Don't you think more kids
are aware of "teat" (pronounced "tit") than of "breast?" Can
skirts on piano legs, er, limbs be far behind?

But silly shit like this is just a pimple on the ass of the
long-term consequences for politics, art and education. You
have passed a law that will get less respect than the 55
m.p.h. speed limit dead bang in the middle of the First
Amendment. Indecency is nothing but a matter of fashion;
obscenity is the same but on a longer timeline. This
generation freely reads James Joyce and Henry Miller and the
Republic still stands. The home of the late alleged
pornographer D. H. Lawrence is now a beautiful writers'
retreat in the mountains above Taos, managed by the
University of New Mexico.

Universities all have Internet servers, and every English
Department has at least one scholar who can read Chaucer's
English -- but not on the Internet anymore. Comparative
literature classes might read Boccaccio -- but not on the
Internet anymore. What if some U. S. Attorney hears about
Othello and Desdemona "making the beast with two backs" --
is interracial sex no longer indecent anywhere in the
country, or is Shakespeare off the Internet?

Did you know you can download video and sound from the
Internet? Yes, that means you can watch other people having
sex if that is interesting to you, live or on tape.
Technology can make such things hard to retrieve, but
probably not impossible. And since you have swept right
past obscenity and into indecency, the baby boomers had
better keep their old rock 'n roll tapes off the Internet.

When the Jefferson Airplane sang "her heels rise for me,"
they were not referring to a dance step. And if some Brit
explains the line about "finger pie" in Penny Lane, the
Beatles will be gone. All of those school boards that used
to ban "The Catcher in the Rye" over cussing and spreading
the foul lie that kids masturbate can now go to federal
court and get that nasty book kept out of cyberspace.

But enough about the past. What about rap music? No, I do
not care much for it either -- any more than I care for the
language you shitheads have forced me to use in this essay
-- but can you not see the immediate differential impact of
this law by class and race? What is your defense -- that
there are no African-Americans on the Internet, since they
are too busy pimping and dealing crack? If our educational
establishment has any sense at all, they will be trying to
see more teens of all colors on the Internet, because there
is a lot to be learned in cyberspace that has nothing to do
with sex.

There are plenty of young people in this country who have
legitimate political complaints. When you dickheads get
done with Social Security, they will be lucky if the
retirement age is still in double digits. But thanks to the
wonderful job the public schools have done keeping sex and
violence out, we have a lot of intelligent kids who cannot
express themselves without indecent language. I have watched
lawyers in open court digging their young clients in the
ribs every time the word "fuck" slipped out.

Let's talk about this fucking indecent language bullshit.
Joe Shea, my editor, does not want it in his newspaper, and
I respect that position. He might even be almost as upset
about publishing this as I a about writing it. I do use
salty language in my writing, but sparingly, only as a big
hammer. Use the fucking shit too fucking much and it loses
its fucking impact -- see what I mean? Fiction follows
different rules, and if you confine your fiction writing to
how the swell people want to see themselves using language,
you not only preclude literary depiction of most people but
you are probably false to the people you purport to depict.

Do you remember how real language used by real people got on
the air and in the newspapers? Richard Nixon, while he was
president, speaking in the White House about official
matters. A law professor and a nominee for Supreme Court
Justice arguing about pubic hairs and porno movies during
Senate hearings. Are these matters now too indecent for the
Internet? How much cleansing will be required of the online
news services? Answer: Enough cleansing to meet the
standard of what is appropriate for a child in the most
restrictive federal judicial district.

This is bullshit -- unconstitutional bullshit and also bad
policy bullshit. To violate your ban on indecency, I have
been forced to use and overuse so-called indecent language.
But if I called you a bunch of goddam motherfucking
cocksucking cunt-eating blue-balled bastards with the morals
of muggers and the intelligence of pond scum, that would be
nothing compared to this indictment, to wit: you have sold
the First Amendment, your birthright and that of your
children. The Founders turn in their graves. You have spit
on the grave of every warrior who fought under the Stars and
Stripes.

And what mess of pottage have you acquired in exchange for
the rights of a free people? Have you cleansed the Internet
of even the rawest pornography? No, because it is a
worldwide system. You have, however, handed the government a
powerful new tool to harass its critics: a prosecution for
indecent commentary in any district in the country.

Have you protected one child from reading dirty words?
Probably not, if you understand what the economists call
"substitution" -- but you have leveled the standards of
political debate to a point where a history buff would not
dare to upload some of the Federalist v. Anti-Federalist
election rhetoric to a Website.

Since the lobby reporting requirements were not law when the
censorship discussion was happening, I hope you got some
substantial reward for what you gave up. Thirty pieces of
silver doesn't go far these days.


-30-


(Steve Russell, retired after 16 years as a trial
judge in Texas, is Assistant Professor of Criminal
Justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio.)


This article may be reproduced free forever.

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