There is a lovely list of insults at Angry 365 Days a Year. I don’t think one should re-use these insults, but I do think that they will serve as a useful model for creating a classic insult of one’s own.
Some of my favorites:
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time in reading it.†–
Moses Hadas“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.†–
Samuel Johnson“He had delusions of adequacy.†–
Walter Kerr“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.†–
Billy Wilder
I’ve always been very proud of this one:
“Do you get dizzy with the world revolving around you like that?”
Oh, brilliant!
Winston Churchill could zing someone like nobody’s business:
“He’s a modest man with much to be modest about.”
Also, I forget the particular Society Lady with whom this exchange took place, but apparently they were discussing the case of a woman who had killed her husband by putting a drop of arsenic into his tea every day. Mr. Churchill said something to which she took umbrage:
Lady: Well, if I were your wife, I should surely poison your tea.
Mr. Churchill: And if I were your husband, madam, I should surely drink it.
Jenna: That’s a good one.
I love Winston Churchill.
In theater, I think we all have a collection of phrases to say if a show is awful, but we don’t want to admit it. My favorite is “I would never have thought to do it like that.”
Hahahaha, Mary, that’s great.
A friend of mine worked in a comic book studio in San Diego, and- oh, this isn’t going to work at all. They had a backhanded way of insulting someone’s work that involved a veiled reference to a disdained rival studio. But as I prefer not to name the rival studio, I suppose that’s not really much of a kneeslapper.
Never mind…
As it happens, I understand perfectly and it brings to mind a similar saying a group of my friends used, which it is probably also better that I not state.
Ha, yes. It’s interesting how I think I’d feel free to be specific if I thought the insult was out of friendly rivalry, or that there wasn’t anything to the lack of respect…
Also, Jenna, the “getting dizzy” one is cute. There’s something I like to say to gently call someone’s attention to their being self-centered & narcissistic. I forget where I got it, but it goes: “And what color is the sky in your world?”
Does it say something about me that I’m so interested in a conversation about insults?
We have no idea of its provenance, but my wife is fond of saying, “He’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”
My own coinage, employed most often to myself when my expectatations have tripped me up once again, is “Hope springs infernal.”