Shakespeare could have used social media to hone the skill of a good insult

INSULTS: they’re not what they used to be, writes Colm O’Regan

Too often the skill of the good insult has been corrupted by lazy stereotyping based on race, sexuality or gender.

On the 400th anniversary of death of the master of the insult, William Shakespeare, it’s time to skill-up again on the insult, its delivery, its alliteration, its aptness. For example, I just used the phrase ‘skill-up’ in a non-office email related context. For that, Shakespeare would no doubt have called me ‘a mammering, hedge-born jolt-head’.

‘Mammering’ comes from Othello, ‘hedge-born’ from Henry VI, ‘jolthead’ from The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

I could say I retrieved those phrases from my well-thumbed, handsomely bound Complete Works of Shakespeare that takes pride of place on my shelf of books, but actually a friend of mine just put them up on Facebook. I don’t think that devalues them. I’d like to think if Shakespeare was here now, he would have started his writing on Facebook slagging off friends’ profile photos with zingers such as “Hey mate you look like a “dankish, dismal-dreaming clotpole. LOLS”

Frankly I want to see more of this. And if you got into trouble, so what? It would nearly worth it to go through the libel case just so that the finest legal minds in the land could debate whether is calling someone an ‘odiferous, pottle-deep gudgeon’ is injurious to their reputation or not. While the silks were arguing about jurisprudence, I would sit on the battlements of my castle, counting sovereigns, whipping the whipping boy, and calling for more Rhenish wine.

You don’t have to be Shakespeare to revel in words. When I was in school in Deerpark in Cork, there was a wonderful mix of language.

One fella with a highish forehead had it described as a pybus. I have never seen that word since. It wasn’t just the words, it was the cadence.

As a bookish, country fella in the heart of Cork city, I shipped my fair share of insults but some were so good you had to applaud. Once, one of the lads said “Shut up you, you small pale nerd”.

Now, I’ve grown up a bit since, got a bit of colour last week, but as you can see from what I am writing, I’m still a nerd. But what a glorious, trip-off-the-tongue, rule-of-three piece of invective!

We need to create our own insults, ones that are not based in the standard ones of gender, class, etc, but when you will still be able to deliver a timely correction to the gobshite in your life. Great words like gobshite need to be used sparingly, lest they lose their value so that’s why we need to make up your own. You don’t have to just ape Shakespeare, because it won’t have an effect. Not everyone will know that calling them a whey-faced ratsbane is a bad thing.

Do put ‘thou’ in front of it because it’s high time that word came back.

There was nothing remarkable about Shakespeare’s time. He just recorded it in detail, so you do the same. Here are a few suggestions: thou Tinder left-swipe, thou frozen iPhone screen, thou LinkedIn Notification, thou Verified by Visa password, thou broken teabag, thou hard butter, thou unexpected item in the bagging area, thou painted-on roundabout, thou persistent hangnail, thou hidden trailer hitch, thou scattered shower, thou shattered scour, thou free iodine tablet, thou overdue bill, thou punctual clamper, thou urban seagull, thou carpet Lego-brick.

A golden age of insults could be upon us. Don’t say thou hast not been warned.

Not everyone will know that calling them a whey-faced ratsbane is a bad thing