What pisses me off? That we resort to four letter words

You know what pisses me off?

In this day and age we can’t come up with beautiful literary insults or put-downs like the ones in this article.  These days if we want to insult someone, we resort to 4 letter words – when did we lose the art of polite but oh so cutting insults or put downs?

This question was asked in a recent article UK newspaper The Telegraph. Some of my favourites are included here, particularly Lady Bracknell’s line from “The Importance of being Ernest”; in fact Mr Wilde has two inclusions.  The other author with two inclusions in the list is the wonderful Miss Austen! The Telegraph listed;

1.    “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” – Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell – (Character: Rhett Butler) – in the movie this was slightly changed to “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

2.    “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, Mr Worthing, to lose both looks like carelessness” – The Importance Of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde – (Character: Lady Bracknell)

3.    “May your genitals sprout wings and fly away.” – Small Gods, Terry Pratchett – (Character: Om – the tortoise)

4.    “If you will forgive me for being personal, I do not like your face.” – Murder On The Orient Express, Agatha Christie – (Character: Hercule Poirot)

5.    “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” – Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen – (Character: Mr Darcy)

6.    “You are the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.” – Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen – (Character: Elizabeth Bennett)

7.    “If looks could kill, you’d soon find out that yours couldn’t.” – After Claude, Iris Owens – (Character: Harriet)

8.    “The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.” – Coriolanus, William Shakespeare – (Character: Menenius)

9.    “The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me.” – The Importance Of being Earnest, Oscar Wilde – (Character: Gwendolen)

10.   “I misjudged you… You’re not a moron. You’re only a case of arrested development.” – The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway – (Character: Harvey Stone) .

Out of the literary and into the parliamentary, the old parliamentarians such as Fred Daly, could be quite cutting in their observations, but they were unfailingly gentlemen. Mr Daly was told by a new member of parliament he enjoyed looking at the “enemy” on the other side of the house.  Mr Daly corrected him by saying the other side of the House was the Opposition and that the enemy were sitting behind him.

Congratulating Sir William McMahon on his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, Mr Daly said it was obviously well deserved and his long agricultural experience with a window box in Elizabeth Bay would hold him in good stead.

Vince Gair was another master of the polite insult and said Sir Billy Snedden wouldn’t make an impression in a soft cushion.

Can you imagine these insults with the addition of coarse language? Apart from the fact that they would be unrepeatable in polite company, would a four letter word add to the imagery?

…and comedians! I went with friends to a Comedy Club to see a comedian whose recordings I thoroughly enjoyed, he used clever turn of phrase to create some very funny insults.  But, on stage every other word was coarse, the beautiful turn of phrase, was turned all right, into utter and complete smut. I stood to leave and he taunted me all the way out, which upset the people I was with and they also left!

Have these people not heard that Bill Crosby is the highest paid comedian in the world and he never uses swear words?

End of rant!

What about our Start at Sixty community; do you have a favourite insult/put down line from any source you would like to share? Do you think we’ve lost the art of using our words as a tool?