Vocabulary fail
September 9, 2011 9:21 AM   Subscribe

Ten insulting words you should know. And a good deal of words you may wish you didn't. (SFW unless mild swear words count).
posted by londonmark (56 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
ye thrawn, ill-feckit gaberlunzie.
posted by elizardbits at 9:25 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


'Rantallion' is a good one, referring to someone whose dangling testicles are much longer than their penis.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:25 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


Interesting article from the entry for "corpulent" about the ideal, sexy woman being "fat" in Mauritania.
posted by 3FLryan at 9:31 AM on September 9, 2011


Thomas Urquhart's version of Gargantua is good value for this:
The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets;
posted by Abiezer at 9:34 AM on September 9, 2011 [30 favorites]


I feel really bad for Feist now.
posted by Lucinda at 9:36 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


Gormless nits, the lot of 'em.
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:40 AM on September 9, 2011


Noddy Meacocks could have been a minor glam rock star in Dudley circa 1975.
posted by Abiezer at 9:44 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


These are usernames waiting to happen.
posted by brundlefly at 9:57 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


Add more nincompoopery to your life today!
posted by quoquo at 10:03 AM on September 9, 2011


Very informative link. Now I know why I get weird looks when I order "Frenchified" potatoes.









and how I contracted syphillis.
posted by beau jackson at 10:06 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I was hoping to find slubberdegullion on that list (though it appears in an alternate spelling in the Gargantua translation Abiezer linked).
posted by whir at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm going to be giggling over "ninnyhammer" for the rest of the day.

It's so FUN. "Ninnyhammer!" "NINNYHAMMER!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:15 AM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Pfft. Utter codswallop.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2011


Now I know why I get weird looks when I order "Frenchified" potatoes.
...and how I contracted syphillis.


This belief was actually common in seventeenth century Europe.
posted by Kabanos at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2011


While she lay in a slumber
I slipped her my cucumber
But it was dark
I missed my mark
And caused her to bescumber
posted by Kabanos at 10:21 AM on September 9, 2011 [28 favorites]


ye thrawn, ill-feckit gaberlunzie.

Ye randy scouse git.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:28 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


After listening to some Mojo Nixon recently, I have re-introduced the word "tallywacker" to my vocabulary.
posted by rhythim at 10:31 AM on September 9, 2011


I had a girlfriend who's dog was a feist. He was both feisty and prone to feists.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:39 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


incompetent whey-faced nestlecock also has a delightful ring to it.
posted by elizardbits at 10:39 AM on September 9, 2011


I am reminded of the six page flyting between the two prostitutes in The Sotweed Factor.
posted by Eyebeams at 10:50 AM on September 9, 2011


Interesting article from the entry for "corpulent" about the ideal, sexy woman being "fat" in Mauritania.

Same is Malawi. My friend spent about two years there and had some funny stories about American's on charity/mission work there being a bit horrified to be called fat on a regular basis as a compliment. He told me about a petite American colleague of his, who was was walking through the market with her Malawian counterpart. The counterpart was a large woman, and looked over to the American and said, "Who Do you think is fatter? You or me?" "Um...you, are?" said the American in a slightly confused tone. "No," the counterpart said in a reassuring way, "I think you are the fatter one."
posted by piratebowling at 10:52 AM on September 9, 2011 [7 favorites]




I'm looking forward to the cacafuego level in Uncharted 3.
posted by BurnChao at 10:59 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is good value too:
Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very deformed of herself, ill-favoured, wrinkled, pimpled, pale, red, yellow, tanned, tallow-faced, have a swollen juggler's platter face, or a thin, lean, chitty face, have clouds in her face, be crooked, dry, bald, goggle-eyed, blear-eyed, or with staring eyes, she looks like a squissed cat, hold her head still awry, heavy, dull, hollow-eyed, black or yellow about the eyes, or squint-eyed, sparrow-mouthed, Persian hook-nosed, have a sharp fox nose, a red nose, China flat, great nose, nare simo patuloque, a nose like a promontory, gubber-tushed, rotten teeth, black, uneven, brown teeth, beetle browed, a witch's beard, her breath stink all over the room, her nose drop winter and summer, with a Bavarian poke under her chin, a sharp chin, lave eared, with a long crane's neck, which stands awry too, pendulis mammis, her dugs like two double jugs, or else no dugs, in that other extreme, bloody fallen fingers, she have filthy, long unpared nails, scabbed hands or wrists, a tanned skin, a rotten carcass, crooked back, she stoops, is lame, splay-footed, as slender in the middle as a cow in the waist, gouty legs, her ankles hang over her shoes, her feet stink, she breed lice, a mere changeling, a very monster, an oaf imperfect, her whole complexion savours, a harsh voice, incondite gesture, vile gait, a vast virago, or an ugly tit, a slug, a fat fustilugs, a truss, a long lean rawbone, a skeleton, a sneaker (si qua latent meliora puta), and to thy judgment looks like a merd in a lantern, whom thou couldst not fancy for a world, but hatest, loathest, and wouldst have spit in her face, or blow thy nose in her bosom, remedium amoris to another man, a dowdy, a slut, a scold, a nasty, rank, rammy, filthy, beastly quean, dishonest peradventure, obscene, base, beggarly, rude, foolish, untaught, peevish, Irus' daughter, Thersites' sister, Grobians' scholar, if he love her once, he admires her for all this, he takes no notice of any such errors, or imperfections of body or mind.
posted by verstegan at 11:01 AM on September 9, 2011 [11 favorites]


Relatedly.
posted by valkyryn at 11:08 AM on September 9, 2011


I don't know why I like the term so much, but "cheese-eating surrender monkey" is still very high on my list.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:11 AM on September 9, 2011


And of course the polar opposite of the surrender monkey, the Hamburger Munching Aggression Baboon.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:24 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


Cheese-eating surrender monkey should be good but since it became associated with Jonah Goldberg I hate it.
posted by Eyebeams at 11:29 AM on September 9, 2011


This reads like a list of heavy metal band names!
posted by TheCoug at 11:32 AM on September 9, 2011


I think I'd be pretty tickled if someone got angry enough to call me a "Ninnyhammer". To be honest, it sounds kind of medievally bad-ass; I feel like shouting "I am Ninnyhammer! Son of Buncome the Corpulent! And I am here to lay siege to your castle, you foul feist!"

Yeah, that could be a way I start talking, I could see that...
posted by quin at 11:34 AM on September 9, 2011


Careful, Tweedy; the mort's frenchified.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:36 AM on September 9, 2011


This reads like a list of heavy metal band names!

I like the idea of a metal band called NïnnyHammër....
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I don't know why I like the term so much, but "cheese-eating surrender monkey" is still very high on my list.

The term was hilarious when coined in 1995 because most people still actually thought pretty highly of the French, and the insult was rightly perceived as a gentle and kindly-meant ribbing.

But when the French-hate got whipped up for real during the Bush Insurgency, and uneducated bigots starting throwing it around as an actual insult, the term lost all of its quaint charm.

Please don't use it, even ironically. It's just plain sad now.
posted by Aquaman at 11:43 AM on September 9, 2011 [11 favorites]


The best insult exchange I ever heard was in high school gym class... Trying to avoid swearing two people ended up say "YOU SUNKEN SHIP" "YOU DUMP TRUCK!"
posted by drezdn at 11:45 AM on September 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


What a cromulent list of embiggened nincompoopery.
posted by not_on_display at 12:06 PM on September 9, 2011


drezdn: "The best insult exchange I ever heard was in high school gym class... Trying to avoid swearing two people ended up say "YOU SUNKEN SHIP" "YOU DUMP TRUCK!"

A little girl once tried to insult an adult me by calling me "Christmas Tree Head", which sounds like a really cheery Silent Hill monster.
posted by brundlefly at 12:14 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I think I'd be pretty tickled if someone got angry enough to call me a "Ninnyhammer".

Didn't they hold the Winter Olympics there?
posted by zamboni at 12:21 PM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


My current favorite is from Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Sun Over Breda, set during the Spanish wars in the Netherlands. In it, a colonel who is fond of hanging as a punishment is called Jiñalsoga ("Rope-shitter") by his men.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:37 PM on September 9, 2011


01-10 Slovenly Trull
11-25 Brazen Strumpet
26-35 Cheap Trollop
36-50 Typical Streetwalker
51-65 Saucy Tart
66-75 Wanton Wench
76-85 Expensive Doxy
86-90 Haughty Courtesan
91-92 Aged Madam
93-94 Wealthy Procuress
95-98 Sly Pimp
99-00 Rich Panderer
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:38 PM on September 9, 2011 [6 favorites]


There's a Feist Animal Hospital in St. Paul, MN. I think may parents have taken their various Labradors there.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:42 PM on September 9, 2011


verstegan, not your fault, but that clump of Burton has a typo-

for (si qua latent meliora puta), read (si qua latent meliora putat)

It's Ovid, (roughly, if anything lies hidden, he imagines it is better) and not of itself an insult.
posted by IndigoJones at 12:53 PM on September 9, 2011


As one of my favorite radio philosophers once said (because the pun works better when spoken) "A nincompoop is a poop with an income."
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:02 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've told the story that in college, I had a role in the drama department's production of "A Man For All Seasons" as Cardinal Wolsey. (Orson Welles played him in the movie) I had one scene, near the beginning, arguing with the main character and providing background exposition before dying offstage. And the only line I remembered from the whole scene a year later was "Our ambassador is a ninny!" (Imagine Orson Welles saying that. Go ahead.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:06 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Neal Stephenson spells "ninnyhammer" "ninehammer" - picture nine hammers. In a sack. Giggle anew.
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:18 PM on September 9, 2011


MECONIUM (first feces of a newborn child)

So... what's the word for the first feces of a prenatal child?
posted by troll at 2:57 PM on September 9, 2011


You're asking a very complicated religious/philosophical/biological question. Allow me to refer you to Jeremiah 1:5, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a poopypants unto the nations.

What this torche-cul of a website neglects to mention is that one of the components of baby's first poo is the fur that had previously covered its fetal body and which it has shed and eaten and digested. Because babies are aliens.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 3:16 PM on September 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Cacafuego is beyond amazing.
"Well, shitfire, honey. That guy's a cacafuego!"
posted by double bubble at 4:33 PM on September 9, 2011


thumbs up! I saved this for many future uses!
posted by femmme at 4:34 PM on September 9, 2011


Please don't use it, even ironically. It's just plain sad now.

Henceforth, I shall use only 'parade shade tree growers' and 'reverse gear tank drivers'.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:10 PM on September 9, 2011


9. FEIST or FICE (n)


Can also mean a girl who dresses like a hipster, but her glasses/bangs/thrift store dress are obviously contrived.
There was a girl on OkCupid I thought was cute, but she was clearly a FEIST and probably didn't even go to art school.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:35 PM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I love these. But my favourite is still "a cheesy lot of second hand electric donkey-bottom biters".
posted by angiep at 6:53 PM on September 9, 2011


Pusillanimous (adj)
posted by homunculus at 8:09 PM on September 9, 2011


You have to love a language with so many words that all mean basically "to spray with poo"
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 8:11 PM on September 9, 2011


wow, I need this, thanks
posted by bensairo at 8:58 PM on September 9, 2011


My favorite semi-obscure insult is "piker."
posted by planetkyoto at 6:16 AM on September 10, 2011


You have to love a language with so many words that all mean basically "to spray with poo"

I used to work with a guy whose family had emigrated to Canada from the Netherlands when he was eight. Once I mentioned to him that I had read that the term poppycock (which would seem to fit right in with this list of ninnyhammer and bescumber and so forth) had been derived from the Dutch pappekak, which I am told means 'soft dung.' I said, "That would seem to imply that there is likewise a Dutch term for 'hard dung'."

He thought for a few seconds and said, "There are actually two: poep and stront." Then after a moment's reflection he added, "We tend to talk a lot about dung in Dutch," as if that did not raise more questions than it answered.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:16 AM on September 10, 2011 [5 favorites]


« Older Teaching 9/11   |   Broken Promises Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments