The art of the insult

It is about time the true insult was revived. Nowadays all you seem to get in – insert here any four letter word that can be followed by ‘off!’, the only alternative seeming to be – again insert any 4 letter word and follow or preceed it with ‘You’.

Where are the wits of former days? – they can’t all be working for the BBC

Yet whole books could and have been written about the art of the insult. They did it in style – Denis Healey speaking about Douglas Howe in ‘the Listener for instance – ‘Being attacked in the House by him is like being savaged by a dead sheep.’

Less well known but just as worthy is Israel Zangwill on George Bernard Shaw ‘ The way George Bernard Shaw believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days when so many people believe in no God at all.’

One of my favourites is very well known – Churchill’s reposte when Nancy Astor said ‘If you were my husband I would poison your coffee.’

‘If I were your husband I would drink it.

Shakespeare had some beauties. You can even create your own. Just line up three columns of Shakespearean insulting words and combine one from each column and place the word Thou in front of each trio

Some of them are obvious, but no I don’t know what ‘pribbling ‘ means either , but it sounds good.

My daughter can give insults in Latin – one of the rarely advertised benefits of the grammar school system.

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris – I f Caesar were alive you’d be on the end of an oar.

Unitum barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant – May barbarians invade your personal space – useful on the tube that..

Quomodus cogis comas tuas sic videri? – How do you get your hair like that?

Sine qua neon – Nothing if not flashy.

My grandfather gave some of the best insults –though half the time I didn’t understand. If he had bad service he would lapse into Welsh – this in Birmingham – and smile while he said to the shop girl – ‘ Yn fytyn’ – fool

My most recent favourite was Kathy Staff’s character ‘Norah Batty’ an dher reply to a would be swain ‘”With you! I’d rather have an accident.”

The art it seems is not entirely dead – leys breathe some life into it.