Handy Shakespearean Insults...

I'm off to the Bard on the Beach Festival in Vanier Park tomorrow afternoon, and in honour of the occasion I thought I'd share a little of the vitriol that comes out in the form of great and classical literature. Could be useful!

You know those times when you wish you could think of something really insulting to say? Those times when "You jerk!" feels hollow and deeply unsatisfying?
Or perhaps you're trying to give someone the brush-off and you feel in a literary mood.

Well, perhaps you should look to the Bard for inspiration. He was great at sassing people and making them feel like dirt.

"Let's meet as little as we can." --As You Like It (the brush-off)

"I will smite his noddles!" --Merry Wives of Windsor (a threat that gives one pause for thought)

"O illiterate loiterer!" --The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Great for telling off those people who riffle through magazines without purchasing them in convenience stores)

And in rush-hour traffic:

You bug! Thou misshapen Dick! Away, you cutpurse rascal, you filthy bung, away! You whoreson upright rabbit! You peevish baggage! You viperous worm that gnaws the bowels!

Yes, Shakespeare could really dish it out well....

My mother followed the Bard's philosophy that it is better to insult creatively than to lower oneself using common cusses. It is a treasured childhood memory: my mother bellowing out the passenger side window after a Mack truck cut us off on a California highway----"Peasant!....Hamster brain!"