Flowery Insults: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!
''You really are a heel!
''You're as cuddly as a cactus!
''You're as charming as an eel!
''Mr. Griii-inch!
''You're a bad banana with a
''Greasy black peel!''
Basically, it's all about insults which are... creative. Not so much like [[You Fight Like a Cow]]. These are more serious, but at the same time almost poetic. Like this Arabian insult:
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May be caused by being from a foreign culture like the example. If both opponents do this, [[Volleying Insults]] is likely to turn into a verbal [[Arms Race]].
Compare [[Cut His Heart Out
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
== Advertising ==
* [[Tintin (Comic Book)|Captain Haddock]] is the best known user of this in the [[French Belgian Comic Books|Bande Dessinee]] genre. See [http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/lists/curses.html here] for alphabetically-sorted examples. "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" ("Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords!") is probably the most iconic one.▼
* And parodying this trope, the Orbit gum commercial:
{{quote|
'''Woman 2:''' Who are you calling a cootie queen, you lint licker?! }}
▲== [[Comic Books]] ==
▲* [[Tintin
* [[Shazam|Captain Marvel's]] foes would often call him a "Big Red Cheese".
== [[Film]] ==
* The French guards in ''[[Monty Python and
{{quote|
* ''[[¡
{{quote|
El Guapo: Son of a motherless goat? }}
* Sgt. Hartman from ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' was able to come up with some pretty colorful insults on the fly.
** Somewhat cruder than most other examples here, though.
{{quote|
* A spare but pointy exchange in ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'':
{{quote|
'''Sherif Ali''': No. Does Auda take me for one of his own bastards?
'''Auda abu Tayi''': No, there is no resemblance. Alas, you resemble your father.
'''Sherif Ali''': Auda flatters me.
'''Auda abu Tayi''': You're easily flattered. I knew your father well.
'''Sherif Ali''': Did you know your own? }}
== [[Literature]] ==
* The [[Redwall]] book ''The Long Patrol'' shows a [[Mook]] insulting a stupid co-worker: "If brains were bread, you'd have starved to death before you were born!" An even more impressive example is the "Duel of Insults" in ''Marlfox''; the characters put on a play in which the characters fight with insults rather than weapons, and [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|react as if wounded with each line]]. Also, in ''Mattimeo'':
{{quote|
"Good, then here's a few more to remember, you brainless featherbottomed excuse for a duck."
[...]
"I will not stand here and be insulted!"
"Then stand somewhere else and I'll insult you there, featherbag!" }}
* The ''[[Spellsinger]]'' novel ''The Paths of the Perambulator'' has a cage ''made'' of gratuitous insults. Mudge the otter manages to defeat it by beating it at its own game.
{{quote|
* In the book ''There Will Be Dragons'', the [[Big Bad]] is given a magnificent dressing down in the middle of a battle, his opponent almost singing a long and eloquent combination of flowery insult and [[Reason You Suck Speech]] (it's a full page in the book) that literally leaves the guy crying before he finally gets put down.
{{quote|
* ''[[The Enchantress of Florence]]'' gave us, among others, "Why don't you go and masturbate a diseased goat?" and "Tell your master to go put a hole in a picture of his late wife and fornicate with that."
* A possible example in one of the ''[[
* The trading of flowery insults is very much part of the joy of conversation in [[Rudyard Kipling|Rudyard Kipling's]] ''Kim'', with a definite note of one-upmanship. Kim for instance forms a rather low opinion of an English drummer boys set to watch over him, in part for Europeans' lack of imagination in this respect, when "all he heard from his companions were the few useless words which seemed to make two-thirds of the white man's abuse. Kim knew and despised them long ago."
* In [[Harlan Ellison]]'s short story "Djinn, No Chaser", the protagonist spends a little while engaging in mixed haggling and insults with the vaguely Arabic proprietor of a [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday|Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday]]. He manages "May a thousand syphilitic camels spit in your couscous." The proprietor pauses, congratulates him on a remarkably good insult, and notes that he'll have to remember it to use himself.
== [[Live
* "Up your nose with a rubber hose!" from ''[[Welcome Back, Kotter]]''.
* Look up ''[[Yes Minister]]''...
* [[
* ''[[The Thick of It]]'' is all about this trope.
* Klinger from ''[[
** He's also said; "May a camel give birth in your tent!"
** "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits."
* Johnny Carson
== Misc ==▼
* A Jewish one:▼
{{quote| May you live in a hundred houses, and may each have a hundred rooms, and may each room have a hundred corners, and may you be thrown from corner to corner!}}▼
** A similar one, not sure if I heard it somewhere or just made it up:▼
{{quote| May you have a hundred relatives, and may they all give you socks on your birthday!}}▼
May a weird holy man drop a cactus down your shorts. }}▼
** Here are some more:▼
{{quote| May you turn into a chandelier, so that you can hang from the ceiling all day and burn at night!<br />▼
May every tooth in your head but one fall out, and that one ache! }}▼
* A Chinese one (which actually probably originated in the U.S.): "May you live in interesting times."▼
* Classical Arabic provides a large number of these. You see, more direct options for insults are notably absent; the ancient Arabs put a high value on poetry, and the language handed down from generation to generation is a high-class, literary/poetic tongue. Pre-Islamic poetry even made an art of insult poetry, called ''Hijaa''', which could get quite creative indeed.<ref>One poem involves seeming to ''praise'' the insultee in the first half of each line, but noting in the second half "And [this letter] is actually [this other letter]," turning each "compliment" into a grave insult.</ref> On the other hand, the various kinds of colloquial Arabic spoken on streets across the Arab world includes an arsenal of vulgarity and obscenity to rival that of any other language, with a particular focus on attacks on one's parentage--most especially on one's [[Your Mom|mother]]--and (for men) implications of being a passive homosexual ("catching", not "pitching"). For comparison:▼
** A typical Classical Arabic insult: You have the right, and may all your wishes come true.▼
** A typical colloquial Arabic insult: Your mother's [[Country Matters|cunt]], you son of a filthy whore!▼
*** This isn't to say, however, that Arabs have lost the knack for flowery insults. Classical Arabic--or rather its updated edition, Modern Standard Arabic--still thrives, and literary types are still quite good at creatively insulting one another in it. Additionally, some groups of Arabs have the old-fashioned floweriness: "A thousand dicks in your religion" is not Classical Arabic, but rather Palestinian.▼
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_16275_the-9-most-devastating-insults-from-around-world.html This is a goldmine for the Real Life section.]▼
* May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits, and may your arms be too short to scratch.▼
* "May the [[Body Horror|Protocaliphora fly]] lay eggs in your testicles weekly." (Protocaliphora is a real genus of fly, but these flies [[Did Not Do the Research|lay their eggs in birds, not humans.]])▼
== [[Music]] ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131110224838/http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/dickens-little-jimmy/may-the-bird-of-paradise-fly-up-your-nose-10376.html "May the bird of paradise fly up your nose."]
== [[Radio]] ==
* Done occassionally on ''[[The Navy Lark]]'', usually by CPO Pertwee. A particularly impressive example:
{{quote|
'''Sub-Lieutenant Phillips:''' Oh, hello, you chaps...
'''Pertwee:''' ...and then there were two. }}
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* [[Teddy Roosevelt]] once said of President McKinley that he had "no more backbone than a chocolate eclair".▼
* Former Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating is still revered as having possessed one of the sharpest tongues ever wielded in the halls of parliament. His insults weren't all flowery gems (he could regularly be openly coarse and was often downright ''savage''), but a number of them were practically works of art. A collection of some of his best can be found [http://www.webcity.com.au/keating/ here.]▼
{{quote| '''Paul Keating:''' I was implying that the Honorable Member for Wentworth was like a lizard on a rock - alive, but looking dead.}}▼
* [[Ludwig Van Beethoven]] had a good one when one of his patrons, a Prince, complained about his work: "Prince, what you are is merely by accident of birth."▼
* When the [[Spoonerism]] had first become popularized, a politician in the British parliament used the opportunity to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|get some crap past the radar]] against his opponent, saying, "Sir, you are a shining wit. I am sorry, that was a spoonerism."▼
* The ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|amazing]]'' [[wikipedia:Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks|Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks]] to Sultan Mehmed IV. When the nicest thing they call you is "Lucifer's secretary", you know they're not screwing around.▼
* [[Mark Twain]] - "I didn't go to his funeral, but I sent a letter saying I approved of it." ▼
== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons
{{quote|
May you sleep with a restless heart and know a thousand nights of misery. }}
▲{{quote| May a crazed weightlifter clean and jerk your sister.<br />
▲May your only son become the goalie on a nude hockey team.<br />
▲May a camel with a weak kidney condition find your hope chest.<br />
▲May the winds of the Sahara blow a desert scorpion up your turban.<br />
▲May you fall asleep under a camel with post nasal drip.<br />
▲May you be forced to visit a near-sighted proctologist.<br />
▲May a weird holy man drop a cactus down your shorts. }}
== Theater ==
* [[Shakespeare]] was also a [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718111214/http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-insults.htm master] of this, the term "lily-livered" was popularized by him.
** ''[[
* ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]'':
** A man wants to insult Cyrano, but all he can say is: "Sir, your nose is... hmm... it is... very big!" Cyrano berates him for being unimaginative, and gives examples of better insults in many different styles.
** At Act II scene I, Ragueneau gives us this gem when he reproach his practical wife Lise her judgment on his friends, the poets:
{{quote|
wretched scribblers of halting lines leave behind them by way of payment?
'''Ragueneau:''' Groveling ant!. . .Insult not the divine grasshoppers, the sweet singers! }}
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Practically everything uttered by Fawful in the ''[[Mario
* The insults in ''[[
* Ezio gives Cesare an insult that's pretty flowery for him at the end of ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Something
*
{{quote|
'''Arachne''': Hyena chick isn't hunting with a full quiver of arrows.}}
** Clover adds [http://yafgc.net/comic/0542-crazy-bird-lady/ more variations], just for the "[[Crazy Cat Lady|Crazy Bird Lady]]".
* Jägermonsters in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030324 are] as good in [[Trash Talk]] as they are in a fight:
{{quote|
* Popular in ''[[
* Christmas Snow from ''[[Shadowgirls]]'', after [[Heel Face Turn|getting a memo]] that the life isn't all high-schoolgirlish pettiness, caught a little [[Battleaxe Nurse|clinical]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140305104624/http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com/comics/health-care/ bureaucrat] and... [http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com/comics/health-care-2/ rather creatively] "exercised" her [[Alpha Bitch|Mad Bitchy Skillz]].
* ''[[Goblins]]'': Kin suffers from fear-enhanced [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]] and comes out with some good ones. "Your existence demonstrates a flesh-to-futility ratio that is mathematically staggering!"
* ''[[Homestuck]]'': Good gracious, Karkat Vantas. For his first meeting with John, he composed a flood of verbal abuse that took up an entire ''page'', and his meticulously-crafted capslock vitriol can sometimes go downright [[Purple Prose|purple]].
* ''[[Cwen's Quest]]'' had one from Trell [https://web.archive.org/web/20180213113805/http://www.cwensquest.com/?comic=chapter-2-page-16-greetings-from-hell bargaining] with Cwen: "Sister, you are six samurai short of a [[Seven Samurai|set]] if you think I'm telling you up front!"
== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[
{{quote|
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (
{{quote|'''Seamus:''' Oooh, this is yer doing, Willy. I'll turn yer groin ta puddin'!
'''Willy:''' Ach, ya speak like a poet, but ya punch like one, too!
-Willy and Seamus fight-
'''Seamus:''' Oh, ow, ya bastard!
'''Willy:''' Gah!|Willy punches Seamus away-}}
* According to Murdoc Niccals of ''[[
* [[The Ren and Stimpy Show|Ren]] refers to Stimpy as "a bloated sack of protoplasm" on occasion.
* From ''[[Inhumanoids]]'' we get "Check the fluid level in your brain!"
▲* A Jewish one:
▲{{quote|
▲** A similar one, not sure if I heard it somewhere or just made it up:
▲** Here are some more:
▲{{quote|
▲May every tooth in your head but one fall out, and that one ache! }}
▲* A Chinese one (which actually probably originated in the U.S.): "May you live in interesting times."
▲* Classical Arabic provides a large number of these. You see, more direct options for insults are notably absent; the ancient Arabs put a high value on poetry, and the language handed down from generation to generation is a high-class, literary/poetic tongue. Pre-Islamic poetry even made an art of insult poetry, called ''Hijaa''', which could get quite creative indeed.<ref>One poem involves seeming to ''praise'' the insultee in the first half of each line, but noting in the second half "And [this letter] is actually [this other letter]," turning each "compliment" into a grave insult.</ref> On the other hand, the various kinds of colloquial Arabic spoken on streets across the Arab world includes an arsenal of vulgarity and obscenity to rival that of any other language, with a particular focus on attacks on one's
▲** A typical Classical Arabic insult: You have the right, and may all your wishes come true.
▲** A typical colloquial Arabic insult: Your mother's [[Country Matters|cunt]], you son of a filthy whore!
▲*** This isn't to say, however, that Arabs have lost the knack for flowery insults. Classical
▲* [http://www.cracked.com/article_16275_the-9-most-devastating-insults-from-around-world.html This is a goldmine for the Real Life section.]
▲* May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits, and may your arms be too short to scratch.
▲* "May the [[Body Horror|Protocaliphora fly]] lay eggs in your testicles weekly." (Protocaliphora is a real genus of fly, but these flies [[Did Not Do the Research|lay their eggs in birds, not humans.]])
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* [[Teddy Roosevelt]] once said of President McKinley that he had "no more backbone than a chocolate eclair".
▲* Former Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating is still revered as having possessed one of the sharpest tongues ever wielded in the halls of parliament. His insults weren't all flowery gems (he could regularly be openly coarse and was often downright ''savage''), but a number of them were practically works of art. A collection of some of his best can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20070829103719/http://www.webcity.com.au/keating/ here.]
▲{{quote|
▲* [[Ludwig Van Beethoven]] had a good one when one of his patrons, a Prince, complained about his work: "Prince, what you are is merely by accident of birth."
▲* When the [[Spoonerism]] had first become popularized, a politician in the British parliament used the opportunity to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|get some crap past the radar]] against his opponent, saying, "Sir, you are a shining wit. I am sorry, that was a spoonerism."
▲* The ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|amazing]]'' [[wikipedia:Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks|Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks]] to Sultan Mehmed IV. When the nicest thing they call you is "Lucifer's secretary", you know they're not screwing around.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20170525163649/https://gruntworksmedia.com/2017/04/19/a-message-to-antifa-from-an-american-infantryman-iron-mike/ A Message to ANTIFA from an American Infantryman]'' has some good turns. "With that level of brain damage, it’s like your mom tried to drown you as a baby in a bathtub full of bong water…"
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Language Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
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