Wordcrafter started it with his quote using "obstipate": You overeducated, obstipated, pedantic ignoramus! Your mathematical intuition froze solid the day you matriculated!

Then I read this by one of my least favorite columnists today (Jonah Goldberg with the National Review Online): Kerry is: "an awful politician, a human toothache with the charisma of a 19th Century Oxford Latin tutor." (Many of his conservative readers wrote that was being unfair to Latin tutors.) Whether you agree politically or not, it's funny! I think even Kerry would think it funny (then again, maybe not!)

Are there others that you've read or that you can come up with?

[Yeah, Arnie, I know...we've talked about this before. But let's do it again!]

Kerry is: "an awful politician, a human toothache with the charisma of a 19th Century Oxford Latin tutor." (Many of his conservative readers wrote that was being unfair to Latin tutors.)

I'm not sure. He seemed like a rather standard politician to me. I can kind of see the human toothache part, though. He does have a pinched sort of face. It's in the magic third phrase that the author shows his true colors. I don't know who he is when he gets home at night (or from a bale of hay as my father used to say), but I know this: I'd rather spend time with a 19th century Oxford Latin tutor than a DC politico or some pantywaist columnist. Sheesh!

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some pantywaist columnist. Sheesh!

What is this? We have columnists, of course, but not this kind.

I agree, zmj, and you made me laugh.

Richard, pantywaist means weak or effeminate. It's a fun word, really, and in many of the Onelook dictionaries.

What is this?

It's a fun insult.

or some pantywaist columnist

Of course, if he agreed with you he wouldn't be a pantywaist, right?

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Richard, pantywaist means weak or effeminate. It's a fun word, really, and in many of the Onelook dictionaries.

I see it's quite an old word, going back to the 1920s in its original meaning.

I have never heard it used in the UK, either as an insult or as name for a garment.

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I have never heard it used in the UK, either as an insult or as name for a garment.

I have not heard it either, but its literal meaning: undergarment consisting of short pants and a shirt that buttoned together at the waist, reminds me of the much scorned habit of a Tory prime Minister who, much to the gleee of the media wore his pants outside his shirt. I wonder whether Edwina put him right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwina_Currie

I like what Akeelah said to Dr. Larabee near the beginning of Akeelah and the Bee.

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. . . I don't need help from a dictatorial, truculent, supercilious gardner.

Excellent movie, btw (thanks again, Shu and Kalleh, for recommending it to me!)

Of course, if he agreed with you he wouldn't be a pantywaist, right?

That probably goes without saying, though I didn't find myself disagreeing with him too strongly about politicians, just Latin tutors. And you! You'd rather spend time with some politician or political columnist than with a Latin tutor?

The topic seems to be clever insults. One of my favorites is: A quaker lady(who never swears) wanted to call somone an SOB. She said, "When thou returneth to thy doghouse, I hope thy mother bites thee."

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You'd rather spend time with some politician or political columnist than with a Latin tutor?

Yep. Not even close. You mean to tell me you wouldn't??!

PS re SOB -- I love it, missann!

Yep. Not even close.

Wow. I'm impressed. I'd rather spend time with almost anybody than a politician. Leper, fishwife, prescriptive grammarian, NFL linebacker, you name it.

Speaking of hidden and fun insults. I watched To Be Or Not To Be last night, the Lubitsch original not the Brooks remake, and one of the actors says to another: "Mr. Rawitch, what you are I wouldn't eat."

Wow, some of these are great! I forgot about the Akeelah insult, CW.

My love of funny insults started when I was in 7th grade and the girls (relatively smart) used to fight with the boys (absolute morons). Eddie, one of the least bright of the bunch did something stupid again, aimed at the girls, and my friend Patsy cracked me up with: "You club-footed fool!" I know, compared to yours, that is sophomoric. However, I still use it in every so often, and it has been a long time since 7th grade! [BTW, in the spirit of political correctness, he wasn't club-footed and in those days we didn't worry nearly as much about PC.]

There are quite a few fun insults in "My Fair Lady." Henry Higgins says that women are "nothing but exasperating, irritating,
vacillating, calculating, agitating,
maddening and infuriating hags!" Of course, Eliza counters deliciously in Without You:
Without your pulling it the tide comes in,
Without your twirling it the earth can spin,
Without your pushing them, the clouds roll by,
If they can do without you, ducky, so can I!"

And in "O Brother, Where Art Thou," Pappy O'Daniel says, "Moral fibre? I invented moral fibre! Pappy O'Daniel was displaying rectitude and high-mindedness when that egghead you work for was still messing his drawers!"

Oh, yes...good find, Saranita.

I found a site with insults. Here are a few of my favorites:

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. -- Abraham Lincoln

A modest little person, with much to be modest about. -- Winston Churchill

God was bored by him. -- Victor Hugo

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

He has Van Gogh's ear for music. -- Billy Wilder

He has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair. -- Theodore Roosevelt

There are several good insults in the musical 1776.

It's about the creation and adoption of the Declaration of Independance.

At one point Adams and Dickinson are calling one another names:

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Adams: You and your Pennsylvania proprietors - you cool, considerate men! You keep to the rear of every issue so i we should go under you'll still remain afloat!

Dickinson: Are you calling me a coward?

Adams: Yes! Coward!

Dickinson: Madman!

Adams: Landlord!

Dickinson: Lawyer!
(At this point they begin whacking away at eachother with their walking sticks)

An excellent scene in an excellent musical. We watch it at least every July, but sometimes at other times of the year.

In the WWI era, French premier George Clemenceau, speaking of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George:

"O, la, la, si je pouvais pisser comme il parle."
[Oh la la, if I could only pisser like he speaks.]

French

C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre. Field Marshall Pierre Bosquet's comment on the British Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. (It's maginficent, but it's not war.)

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In the WWI era, French premier George Clemenceau, speaking of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George:

Well, he was Welsh, after all. And it is a well-known fact that the Welsh are gifted with words (see generalisation thread).

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I found a site with insults.

Great subject we all secretly love, and sadly in my case an example of "l'esprit d'escalier".
One of my favourites is the taunt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

The composer Max Reger once received a poor review. He wrote to the critic, "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."

Hilarious!

I must remember that when I get back peer reviews of articles I write...

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I must remember that when I get back peer reviews of articles I write...

The well-phrased and partly-veiled insult is often a good response.

I once write to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (the UK body supposedly responsible for standards in testing) in response to a letter they had sent me, which was hugely critical of my use of English in some of my suggested testing range statement. The letter included the disgraceful solecism "...it is unclear what it's meaning is..."

I replied along the lines, "...I am sorry you find my use of language unclear. It is, however, grammatically accurate and innocent of spelling errors; I fear that not all the communications in our exchange can be said to meet this standard..."

Oh, that's good, too! did you hear from them again?

A nice tax season one. I don't have it in front of me, but it goes something like...

"May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense."

from Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping.

edited - fixed quote

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Myth Jellies,

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Oh, that's good, too! did you hear from them again?

No. They didn't even have the manners or good business sense to reply. But then, they are a Quango http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango and are thus accountable to nobody but themselves.

Myth, that's hilarious! Also, no need on this forum to explain your edits. Heck, if I did that, all my posts would be explanatory.

It's the only forum I've ever posted on that doesn't allow you to preview your posts, though that would not have helped in this case

Love yours, Wally (and welcome aboard, by the way) and yours too, myth.

quote: The well-phrased and partly-veiled insult is often a good response.

Indeed. I recall and incident involving Voltaire, in conversation:

Voltaire: [utters complimentary remarks about M. ________]
Interlocutor: You are most generous, particularly as M. ________ does not think well of you.
Voltaire: Well, we may both be mistaken.

Something that sounds like an insult but is in fact the reverse: An in-law of mine from Texas, visiting us up north, said, "We get a much better class of visitor than you do."

Lovely Wally!

Reminds me of the quote (I forget who at the moment) "I talk to myself because I like to deal with a better class of people" (or something like that)

Bob

Funny! It reminds me of my grandfather who used to, teasingly of course, bring strawberry greens (What are those called?) or steak bones or something similar to our home when he visted and threw them into our garbage. He'd say, "I just wanted to make your garbage a little classier." Yes, he was a little weird, and I suppose I've inherited that from him.