nerd is a much more accepted term now than before. When I grew up, I got insulted at school for knowing a lot of things, but today, I am a proud nerd. A much better place to be I think.
Same with geek. I don't know that there's a definitive version of it anywhere, but Wil Wheaton of Star Trek fame used to give a short speech about "What it means to be a nerd" at conventions and such. I've seen at least two versions of his take, but I can no longer find the original one that had my favorite illustration of the concept. Basically, a nerd is someone who takes the time to understand the things that take time to understand. For example, you can watch a football game and enjoy it on a surface level, but you can also dig deep into the stats and understand it on a level even fans don't. Conversely, chess a game for nerds because only a nerd can understand chess; you can't appreciate it without taking time to learn about it.
Charles Babbage: "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of British Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
It's meant to be a criticism not only of the person's idea, but a criticism of the entire theoretical basis of the idea. "It's not even wrong" means "You're not even thinking of it in the right way." Brilliant.
@@kruadorI can actually see a reason for asking that. Basically, it's asking whether getting the expected result could be used to validate that the machine worked properly.
I love that he can make reference to “whose ass they’re licking,” but “dick” and “bastard” and “penis” make him blush. A man from the land of “C U Next Tuesday” being a term of endearment more than an insult, “feckin” all over the tv. LOL
I’ve used that one often, perhaps not with the religion excuse. The beauty of it is that most often the dullard I’m addressing doesn’t even realize that they have been insulted.
“If I were your wife, sir, I would poison your tea.” Attributed to Lady Astor when speaking with Winston Churchill. “If you were my wife, madame, I would drink it.” Thought to be Churchill's reply.
My favourite Churchill anecdote takes place in the Gentlemen's Conveniences of the House of Commons, with Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee as the only occupants. Attlee, noticing that Churchill takes care to do his business at some distance: You're being very standoffish today, Winston. Churchill: Yes, because as soon as you lot see anything big, you want to nationalise it.
I have read that the exchange continued: "Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!" "Yes, and you're ugly. But in the morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly."
Another saying supposedly by Churchill was, he liked a drink of whisky or four, and a woman took exception to him drinking and admonished him "You sir, are drunk!" He reportedly answered with, "I may be drunk madame, but in the morning I will be sober. You however will still be ugly!"
@@CastlebayNet_Music Ah yes, I forgot that he'd already called her ugly! Thanks for correcting it. As I age my memory becomes more like Swiss cheese unfortunately.
There was the use of the word “sycophant” in the live action version of “101 Dalmatians” where Cruella DeVil (Glenn Close) says to her toady, “what kind of sycophant are you?” to which the toady replies, “what kind of sycophant would you like me to be?”
In sideshows, "freaks" were attractions based on what someone inherently was (e.g. fat, tall, hairy), whereas "geeks" were what someone did (e.g. fire eater, sword swallower, strong man, tattoed individual).
I love how Rob blushes and stammers sometimes at mild sexual references but blighthly drops "whose arse they happen to have been licking" without batting an eyelash. 😂
Lol. I don't think arse was the 'female genitalia" word that Jess was referring to, nor do I think it's really even considered female genitalia, despite the associations
@@NickMak-m2c It's not, an arse is what you repose upon when you sit down. An "arse-licker" or "arse-kisser" is the equivalent of the US "boot-licker". We also call someone a "brown-nose" or say someone is "brown-nosing" because his nose is so far up his boss' arse, it's turned brown. An ass is a donkey.
I'm also amused that he bleeps dick in this episode but has casually said cock multiple times in past episodes. He's usually meaning rooster, but that's not a word you throw around in the US unless you're intent is to be misunderstood or make a double entendre. I still struggle to trace out exactly where he's drawn his line in the sand to divide words he says and those he blushes at.
I'm surprised to see that people are trying to connect arse-licking to the female genitalia mentioned earlier. They're discussing sycophants, who could also be described as ass-kissers or boot-lickers. Pretty sure that's the only connection he was making (not an anatomical one)
@@donaldmilne5352 Red Dwarf had some of the best! "We all have something to bring to this discussion but I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence" And the classic "Drop dead, Rimmer" "Already have" "Encore!"
In the movie of _The Maltese Falcon,_ the Humphrey Bogart character called the Peter Lorre character a "gunsel". Apparently thinking that the word meant "gunman", the censors let it go. That meaning has even made it into dictionaries. But it actually meant something completely different, that the censors would never have allowed.
Sorry to raise a voice of dissent, but I bloody HATED "smeg-head", because I knew what it was. It put me off Red Dwarf as a kid, and it still does. Yuk!
My father used to respond to unsolicited suggestions with "That's an idea." Nobody ever seemed to notice that he didn't say it was an especially *good* idea, or that he intended to implement said idea . He simply acknowledged that they'd had a thought. His tone, to those of us who knew him, might also have suggested that not every thought was worthy of vocal expression.
In Australia, "plonk" refers to cheap wine, so being "on the plonk" means being drunk. After hearing your explanation for "plonker" my wife wondered if we call it that because it gets you absolutely bombed?!
The Australian vernacular has employed many instances of rhyming slang, as have some British sub-cultures, such as Cockney (the source of some of the Aussie examples). *@TesterAnimal1's* VinBlanc (French pronunciation) = Plonk being one of many. Other examples inc: Red (tomato) sauce = Dead Horse. Consequently, Worcestershire sauce is called Black Horse. "I'm gonna take a Captain Cook" = "I'm going to have a look" (the Cockneys would say "go for a Butchers Hook"). The list is extensive. During WW2 Aussie troops were wont to refer to a visiting American soldier as a "Seppo" (typically Aussie shortening of "Septic Tank", rhyming slang for "Yank"). Perhaps there is an episode topic here for Jess & Rob?
Hah! I was about to write a comment about the French Knights in "Monty Python & the Holy Grail". "You 2nd-hand electric, donkey-bottom biters!" "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" etc
Many - _many_ - years ago I was told that if I had "2 more brain cells, you would pass for a cabbage." Took me a long time to get over that one. (I think I have.)
A "brat" in Old Welsh (and related Brittonic Celtic languages) was a piece of cloth, often used to swaddle a child. It survives in modern (southern) Welsh as a word for "apron"; perhaps still resonating with the idea of a child "clinging on to the apron strings".
I've also read it theorized that the cloth connection gives "brat" the implication of a child in rags, either because they're impoverished or unwanted. In another connection to this episode, it's found in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie ("beggar with thy brattis"). - Jess
@@tomrogue13 In Ukrainian, as well. Ukrainian has a lot of borrowed words from neighboring countries: one of the benefits, if you will, of having a desirable country whose territory has changed hands a lot.
• I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. - English Professor, Ohio University • He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. - Oscar Wilde • Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad name. - Henry Kissinger • He occasionally stumbles over the truth, but he quickly picks himself up and acts as though nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill, about a politician
• Parts of his writings are good, and parts are original. Unfortunately none of the good parts are original and none of the original parts are good - review of author L.Ron Hubbard
I fell immense pride when, as a foreigner, I can follow this... Jess and Rob are great fun for a language nerd. Real English tutors while they are just having fun with words.
Edmund always had a lovely selection of insults to choose from, some quite long and involved - and having to think about it briefly just made them funnier. It's rather like giving someone scatological culinary recommendations. 😁
I love the word nincompoop. Reminds me of a lovely chap I used to work with years ago. We asked him if he was going to join the gang for an after work cheeky beer or two, and he replied "No, sorry, I'm going to be a nincompoop again". We all just stood there staring at him, until I piped up "Do you mean party-pooper?". He did, and we all honked with laughter. I still use it to describe a no-show and it still makes me smile.
There are insults that can be understated and devastating, but the most fun insult I’ve ever heard is on Top Gear, where James May said to Jeremy Clarkson: “You are an apocalyptic dingleberry.” There is no comeback from that.
My father, from Oklahoma, taught me some good ones “Your brain would rattle around in a celery seed like a pea in a bushel basket!” And there is a person with a face like a bucket of eels.
A colleague once described a certain student as “having a brain so small it would rattle around in a flea’s butt like a bb in a boxcar.” Akin to your father’s bon mot.
"Somewhere a village is missing its idiot..." This has circulated over a hundred years and supposedly originated in British or American military or naval officer ratings. I still find occasion to use it.
One of my favorite insults from Lord of the Rings was Samwise Gamgee's recollection of the words his old gaffer would have for him: "You're nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee!" []
I was hoping for an etymology of "git". It's been a topic of conversation in my family for decades. I always thought it was derived from Hindi and meant something like "commoner" because there was, or perhaps still is, a brand of Indian food called "Gits". However, I have also heard that it is a variant of Scottish "Get" which meant an illegitimate child, a bastard. I suppose that is probably the more correct origin, but I did get a kick out of seeing boxes of Gits. Also, Github is so named because the person who created it said he was a git.
You're right, the second one is the correct one, same energy as "brat," dating back to at least the 1700s. But I agree, the box of gits is a fantastic mental image. 😆
"Were I like thee I'd throw away myself." -Timon of Athens. "You cram these words in my ears against the stomach of my sense." -The Tempest. "Go thou, and fill another room in hell." -Richard II. "I do desire we may be better strangers." -As You Like It. "Thou clay-brained guts, thou knott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch." -Henry IV. "You are as a candle, the better part burnt out." -Henry IV. "She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her." -Comedy of Errors. "But he has not so much brain as ear-wax..." -Troilus and Cressida. "A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!" -The Tempest. "I can never see him but I am heart-burned an hour after." -Much Ado About Nothing. "More of your conversation would infect my brain." -Coriolanus. "His face is the worst thing about him." -Measure for Measure. "Her beauty and her brain go not together." -Cymbeline. "Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!" -Timon of Athens. "Direct thy feet where thou and I henceforth may never meet." -Twelfth Night. "... A rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggardly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy-worsted-stocking knave... and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander and the son and heir of a mongrel... one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition." -King Lear. "What fools these mortals be."-A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Ah no, must is "new" unfermented wine. Mustard being a sauce made from grape juice and crushed mustard seeds. Most modern mustard uses white grape vinegar, but it can use violet colored grape juice.
@@WordsUnravelled if course that's French, German (senf) and English mustard. Italian mostarda is made with fruit preserve in a ground mustard seed syrup.
Also, about twenty years ago, a toymaker came our with a series of girls' dolls with oversized heads and extremely edgy clothes. The dolls were called "Bratz"
Brat underwent amelioration years ago, being used to refer to children who grew up in military families -- both by others and by ourselves. Found this: www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/article/2060438/military-brat-do-you-know-where-the-term-comes-from/
@@BillPatten-zh6lx Ah yes, and they were dubbed 'the Brat Pack'. That was surely a seminal moment in changing or extending the use of 'brat' to insult young adults.
As far as I'm aware, it still is an insult for a child (or a person acting childishly). In an interesting connection to another part of this episode, one of its first known instances of "brat" for a child, particularly a ragged or poor one, is found in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie ("beggar with thy brattis") in this passage that also contains a much saltier compound on the next line! Bleeped in case YT doesn't like it: Iersche brybour baird, wyle beggar with thy brattis, C*ntbittin crawdoun, Kennedy, coward of kynd, Evill farit and dryit, as Densmen on the rattis, Lyk as the gleddis had on thy gulesnowt dynd, Mismaid monstour, ilk mone owt of thy mynd, Renunce, rebald, thy rymyng, thow bot royis. Full text here: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/display/10.1093/actrade/9780198118886.book.1/actrade-9780198118886-div1-24 - Jess
Some of my favorite insults come from the 1970s sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter." The very first episode there is a battle of insults which was known by the slang at the time as "ranking."
Here's one from Saki (H.H. Monroe) Bore: "Remember me? You probably don't recognise me with my moustache" Clovis: "On the contrary, your moustache is the only thing about you that is at all familiar"
During the UN International Year of the Disabled, English songwriter Ian Dury (who had been disabled by polio as a child) wrote "Spasticus Autisticus" as a response to the international year, which he found patronizing. It was quickly banned from airplay and widely "tsk-tsked", but would later be featured as paet of the opening of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
There's an online comic called Achewood that once used the word "clopsy" to mean drunk (as in "Oh man, you know I get all clopsy on the Scotch!"). I always liked that one and use it from time to time. Even though it's a total invention, its meaning is obvious in context.
Thanks Jess and Rob for this enjoyable series of videos. As a non native English speaker I found it really interesting, instructive and captivating. There is just one thing that annoys me and I am almost sure you are not aware of, if you turn on the subtitles, thing that helps me out a lot to fully understand the richness of your content, the words and some other informations that appears in the bottom of the screen is hidden. Keep on doing this great job.
On the "-ard" suffix you forgot to include "dotard" which is one I learned from Kim Jung Il of all people, when he wrote it as an insult to Donald Trump (before they "fell in love" that is)
Fun show as always. Thanks guys… As for “nincompoop”… I suspect I’m wrong but I’ve always conjectured that it is a twisting of the word “incompetent.” Seems like a far toss, but as an insult it is often used to insult someone who has done a task badly. So - a personal etymology and most likely errant, but there you are. If I did badly you can call me a nincompoop! I’ll take it like a dork.
My mother’s favorite insult that she used during the late forties early fifties, someone that was incompetent was the meaning that I got, so your guess at the entomology sounds correct to me.
One of my favorite insults is "lickspittle". It refers to a lacky or toady who is such a sycophant that they would literally lick the spit of their object of adoration off of the ground.
While I used to use "nimrod" occasionally as an insult, the music geek in me has changed my perception of that word. My mind often goes first the the beautiful 9th variation of Elgar's Enigma Variations (which I actually happened to have on in the background while listening to this podcast, and the "Nimrod" Variation was on when you were discussing that word). The variation was dedicated to his friend and editor Augustus J. Jaeger (Jaeger coming from the German for hunter), who encouraged him to keep composing when he felt burned out. That's the kind of "nimrod" I wouldn't mind being.
I say an insult I got from my mom that know one seems to know: “ Oh my - he’s a house full.” meaning someone who takes all your time, energy, brain power, etc to interact with or be around.
I love Sketchy as an insult. It basically means that something is isn't well thought out, not fully formed, or downright deceptive. Applied to a person it says that they are dodgy, and liable to scam you, or rob you. Applied to a place it indicates the place in dangerous in some way, eg that Alleyway is sketchy (You could get mugged down there), or that ladder is sketchy (Liable to break). It's quite versatile.
Speaking of cartoon characters as insults, Dilbert predates Scott Adams by a fair bit - there was a WW2 cartoon character named Dilbert used in training videos for US pilots. Dilbert did all the things pilots were very specifically not supposed to do, and the cartoon would then play out the consequences upon Dilbert.
This program is like an extended version of a conversation I recall fondly from the 1980s. In those days I worked at an art museum that people used to rent for lovely parties. While the guests were eating, we folks guarding the upstairs art had no guarding to do. One evening we devoted our free time to discussing insults for the benefit of one of us who had immigrated to the US and had great English, but she always wanted to learn more. It was a fun and informative chat, just like this episode!
This is an enlightening vlog, I am from Mexico and most of the time I work with persons from the United States, and seldom with people form UK. I have learn a lot about the way english is spoken in US and UK. Thank you for sharing.
There's also the British propensity to turn any noun into an insult by prefacing it with 'you absolute...' Can't believe you missed that one, Rob, you absolute beeswax. 😂
Ones I have reason at some time: "All hat, no cattle" is a good one in some situations. "Not the sharpest spoon in the drawer" mixes in some humor from using "spoon" "There is White-Out on their monitor" kind of came and went in the early days of PCs. "An 8 bit mind in a 16/32/64 bit world" is another PCs era one.
Nerd was a word being used by artists for such things as dirt and eraser crumbs that had to be removed from the artwork long before it got applied to people, I think. I was hearing it in that context in the early 1960s while doing newspaper work. There's also nerdle, a term of art meaning a dollop of some semi-liquid dispensed somehow as needed, like the bit of toothpaste you put on your toothbrush. Nerdle has appeared in legal papers involving lawsuits about patents for producing striped toothpaste.
"Nerd" was a common insult on the TV show Happy Days, which was made in the 1970s but took place in the 1950s. As a child in the 70s watching this show, I wasn't familiar with the term at first, so I asked my mom since she would have direct knowledge of the 50s. She said she'd never heard that term and stated (apparently incorrectly) that it had been made up for that show. Maybe it just hadn't been that popular in her circles and/or at that time. What I do know, though, is that it suddenly became a popular word at my school because of its frequent use on Happy Days (which was one of the most popular shows at the time).
Aah, such an educational & culturally-enlightening show, AND the advent of Mork from Ork (Robin Williams' first acting role!). Sit on it Potsie! Shazbat! Nanu nanu!
@@VJacquette I was a child in the 50s, a teen in the 60s. I don’t remember “nerd” being used, and I probably would have been called one if it had. Egghead would have been equivalent. Just being called an intellectual would have been an insult in itself.
This omitted two of my favorites that happen to be compounds based on "lick." Bootlick and lick-spittle. Too bad the latter is too archaic to use in a conversation without derailing it. On amelioration, I expect that some very ameliorated common words were once graphically sexual, e.g. hot rod, joystick, rock and roll, jazz. Some pretty foul words in UK English are used without qualm in the USA. There's spunk (meaning resilience or determination in the US) and bugger (never used as a verb unless in the UK sense, but an endearment as a noun in the US: "What a feisty little bugger your dog is!"
Since 1967, one particular Shakespearean insult has stuck in my head--my friend Robin and I (we were both 13 at the time) were quite DORKY and used this one whenever we wanted to insult someone. "Rump-fed Ronyon"--loved it, and remember it to this day!
Oh dear, gazeboed and carparked are very appropriate. It's far safer remaining slightly squiffy. "Damn your eyes" is a personal favourite in a historical context, but a bit aggressive for modern use sadly.
Insult, consult, result When i was a teen in the 70s, we used the word spastic and spaz a lot. I used to say stuff like "she has a lot of spazamataz". It was often used as a synonym for someone extremely clumsy.
Are either of you fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic War nautical novels? They are full of wonderful insults - O'Brian had a gift for writing authentic sounding dialogue, clearly well researched. One of the protagonists, Stephen Maturin (an able linguist himself) is prone to producing long strings of eloquent insults when provoked: "you ignorant, incompetent whey-faced nestlecock"; "infamous, double-poxed baboon"; "thou art the offspring of an impotent mole and a dissolute bat"; "a deeply stupid, griping, illiberal, avid, tenacious pinchfist lickpenny, a sordid lickpenny and a shrew" - to give but a few examples! The books, and Maturin's character in particular, are a delight for those who love language.
The recent-ish (post-2000 or so) trend for compound insults in the form [rude word] + [random animal] has given us such wonders as: Twatbadger, Spunkferret, Shitsquirrel. You can use pretty much any combination, even "Cockwomble" which includes a fictional animal.
Legally speaking Bastard indicates an acknowledged child born out of wedlock as opposed to a child denied by the father. It was partiicularly important among the gentry because it granted the child status as part of the family. In heraldry this was denoted by the bar sinister over the family arms, which is a diagonally line running from left to right.
Bar Sinister as a mark of bastardy is a myth. The first problem is a bar goes straight across the shield and cannot be either sinister or dexter. What people mean is a Bend Sinister, which is a diagonal stripe, but even then, it is wrong. Bastards have new designs that while they often relate to the fathers’ arms, they do not have a specific “code” for the relationship. Some of Charles II bastards have a baton sinister which maybe where the myth originated.
@@hempsellastro What I was visualizing as you describe it was a bend, sorry for mixing them up. And thank you for the clarification, I should take it up with my Med History lecturer from Uni although it was an awfully long time ago. Possibly long enough I may have misremembered. 😄
@@Charliemonsteruk I think it more likely your uni lecturer was wrong. It always surprises me the degree to which medieval historians are rather hazy on heraldry, and how it uses changed over the period. Especially given how important it was to the people at the time (well OK to the rich people at the time). However your overall point was a good one, “bastard” was not an insult but indicted an important relationship.
I'm not a native English speaker. The first (and only) time I saw the word "nincompoop" was on the cover of Mike Oldfield's record Amarok which gives a warning that "This record could be hazardous to the health of cloth-eared nincompoops." It was in the 90s, there was no internet to speak of and I didn't know what the word meant, I didn't find it in the dictionary. So I ended up asking our American English teacher at school and she gave me only a very vague answer😁
it's a bit old-fashioned, I'd associate it with the 1940's. The kind of thing a bullying schoolmaster would call a young child who's not a very good student
@@IanKemp1960 Thank you. I think that was the intention of the message on the album cover: a tongue in cheek nudge to annoy those people who are ready to be annoyed by it 😅
A lot of good insults have been attributed to Churchill, but perhaps falsely. Supposedly, referring to John Foster Dulles, he said, "Dull, duller, Dulles." He also supposedly referred to someone, Eden, I think, as having "delusions of adequacy". Lady Astor once said to him, "Winston, you're drunk", to which he replied, "Madam, you're ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober."
During the post-war election campaign, Winston is reputed to have referred to his opponent in the phrase "an empty taxi drew up, and out stepped Mr. Attlee"
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." / Winston Churchill, in response: "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
Re "cowardy custard": the colour yellow does actually come to mind in connection with being afraid. The liver plays a part, for when our liver is diseased, our complexion tends to turn yellow. Hence - "lily-livered", a popular term for cowardice. So... maybe that's the custard connection? Also, "yellow-bellied" springs to mind.
In Australia FIGJAM (Fuck I'm Good, Just Ask Me) is used for someone who is too sure of their abilities and popularity. Drongo (obsolete), was the name of a race horse who placed 2nd and 3rd, but never won.
If memory serves me correctly, the phrase Michael McIntyre used for being drunk was to be "bungalowed!" I love that intelligent types initially owned the term geek, and have more recently appeared to have done the same with nerd. Great to see the use and meaning of words bend and change within our lifetime.
I am regularly reminded, as a software engineer, and by your shirt, about the "etymology" of the codes used by Windows systems to represent the end of a line of text. Other systems use a single character represented by the number 10, called "line feed", but windows uses two: a "carriage return" followed by a "line feed". The etymology is pretty clearly based on typewriters and teletype machines, indicating that you should return the print head carriage back to the starting position AND feed the paper forward by one line. I feel like "carriage return" could be a good insult for a useless vestige.
Cumberworld sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch's fanbase. "Are you part of the Cumberworld?"
I have heard that some female fans of Benedict Cumberbatch call themselves Cumberbitches. I have zero idea if this is true or not.
"Wisdom has forever been in pursuit of you, but you were always swifter".
cant believe rob said that the “plonker has softened” and no one made a joke about it
Very hard one to pass up, I would've thought.
nerd is a much more accepted term now than before. When I grew up, I got insulted at school for knowing a lot of things, but today, I am a proud nerd. A much better place to be I think.
Same with geek. I don't know that there's a definitive version of it anywhere, but Wil Wheaton of Star Trek fame used to give a short speech about "What it means to be a nerd" at conventions and such. I've seen at least two versions of his take, but I can no longer find the original one that had my favorite illustration of the concept. Basically, a nerd is someone who takes the time to understand the things that take time to understand. For example, you can watch a football game and enjoy it on a surface level, but you can also dig deep into the stats and understand it on a level even fans don't. Conversely, chess a game for nerds because only a nerd can understand chess; you can't appreciate it without taking time to learn about it.
I've read somewhere a quote from the early 90s, it said "Nerd used to be a four-letter word, now it's a six-figure number"
The best insult I know was directed not at a person but at an idea. Physicist Wolfgang Pauli once referred to someone's idea as "not even wrong".
Charles Babbage: "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of British Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
"Not even wrong" is one of the best ever.
Still in use in the particle physics community though we are meant to play more nicely than we did in the past!
It's meant to be a criticism not only of the person's idea, but a criticism of the entire theoretical basis of the idea. "It's not even wrong" means "You're not even thinking of it in the right way." Brilliant.
@@kruadorI can actually see a reason for asking that. Basically, it's asking whether getting the expected result could be used to validate that the machine worked properly.
“My days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle.”
Mal Reynolds - Firefly
Jess making Rob blush with her expletives never gets old 😆
Definitely. Rob may want to ask his partner to apply some cover makeup before he talks with Jess!
@@BillPatten-zh6lx No, he should just accept it a carry on. Nobody dislikes the fact he blushes
Although I was initially impressed that he got through "plonker" without turning red!
I love that he can make reference to “whose ass they’re licking,” but “dick” and “bastard” and “penis” make him blush. A man from the land of “C U Next Tuesday” being a term of endearment more than an insult, “feckin” all over the tv. LOL
"I would talk to you but my religion forbids me from engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed person" 😁
I’ve used that one often, perhaps not with the religion excuse. The beauty of it is that most often the dullard I’m addressing doesn’t even realize that they have been insulted.
Conversation must be non existent with your fellow believers.
I would beat you in a battle of wits, but my religion forbids me from combat with an unarmed opponent.
I think I just violated my religious beliefs.
“If I were your wife, sir, I would poison your tea.” Attributed to Lady Astor when speaking with Winston Churchill.
“If you were my wife, madame, I would drink it.” Thought to be Churchill's reply.
My favourite Churchill anecdote takes place in the Gentlemen's Conveniences of the House of Commons, with Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee as the only occupants.
Attlee, noticing that Churchill takes care to do his business at some distance: You're being very standoffish today, Winston.
Churchill: Yes, because as soon as you lot see anything big, you want to nationalise it.
I have read that the exchange continued:
"Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!"
"Yes, and you're ugly. But in the morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly."
Another saying supposedly by Churchill was, he liked a drink of whisky or four, and a woman took exception to him drinking and admonished him "You sir, are drunk!" He reportedly answered with, "I may be drunk madame, but in the morning I will be sober. You however will still be ugly!"
@@CastlebayNet_Music Ah yes, I forgot that he'd already called her ugly! Thanks for correcting it. As I age my memory becomes more like Swiss cheese unfortunately.
@@CastlebayNet_Musicthat is clever thinking while intoxicated.
There was the use of the word “sycophant” in the live action version of “101 Dalmatians” where Cruella DeVil (Glenn Close) says to her toady, “what kind of sycophant are you?” to which the toady replies, “what kind of sycophant would you like me to be?”
In sideshows, "freaks" were attractions based on what someone inherently was (e.g. fat, tall, hairy), whereas "geeks" were what someone did (e.g. fire eater, sword swallower, strong man, tattoed individual).
Geeks bit off the heads of chickens, (according to Lindsay Gresham).
I love how Rob blushes and stammers sometimes at mild sexual references but blighthly drops "whose arse they happen to have been licking" without batting an eyelash. 😂
Lol. I don't think arse was the 'female genitalia" word that Jess was referring to, nor do I think it's really even considered female genitalia, despite the associations
@@NickMak-m2c It's not, an arse is what you repose upon when you sit down. An "arse-licker" or "arse-kisser" is the equivalent of the US "boot-licker". We also call someone a "brown-nose" or say someone is "brown-nosing" because his nose is so far up his boss' arse, it's turned brown.
An ass is a donkey.
I'm also amused that he bleeps dick in this episode but has casually said cock multiple times in past episodes. He's usually meaning rooster, but that's not a word you throw around in the US unless you're intent is to be misunderstood or make a double entendre. I still struggle to trace out exactly where he's drawn his line in the sand to divide words he says and those he blushes at.
@@osmium6832 He's a typical Englishman.
😁😄😃
I'm surprised to see that people are trying to connect arse-licking to the female genitalia mentioned earlier. They're discussing sycophants, who could also be described as ass-kissers or boot-lickers. Pretty sure that's the only connection he was making (not an anatomical one)
Red Dwarf's "Smeg head" is a remarkably inventive insult that somehow made it to mainstream TV despite actually being quite filthy.
@@donaldmilne5352 Red Dwarf had some of the best! "We all have something to bring to this discussion but I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence"
And the classic "Drop dead, Rimmer" "Already have" "Encore!"
In the movie of _The Maltese Falcon,_ the Humphrey Bogart character called the Peter Lorre character a "gunsel". Apparently thinking that the word meant "gunman", the censors let it go. That meaning has even made it into dictionaries. But it actually meant something completely different, that the censors would never have allowed.
Sorry to raise a voice of dissent, but I bloody HATED "smeg-head", because I knew what it was. It put me off Red Dwarf as a kid, and it still does. Yuk!
You mean a smeee heee?
@@michaelsommers2356 It's a wonderfully subversive film with a lot of subtext that slipped by the censors.
17:36 So a mallard is someone who hangs in malls too much
Well-spotted! But in the case of "mallard," it's not using that (ultimately Germanic) suffix; rather, it's from the Latin mallardus. - Jess
@@WordsUnravelled ah,,, the germanic version of ' ay up duck'
My father used to respond to unsolicited suggestions with "That's an idea."
Nobody ever seemed to notice that he didn't say it was an especially *good* idea, or that he intended to implement said idea . He simply acknowledged that they'd had a thought. His tone, to those of us who knew him, might also have suggested that not every thought was worthy of vocal expression.
In Australia, "plonk" refers to cheap wine, so being "on the plonk" means being drunk. After hearing your explanation for "plonker" my wife wondered if we call it that because it gets you absolutely bombed?!
Plonked is not often used here in the US but when I have her to use it always referred to being drunk, plastered, smashed,etc.
Named for “vin blanc”, white wine.
@@TesterAnimal1 Rumpole of the Bailey (by John Mortimer) would often adjourn to the pub for his glass of plonk.
The Australian vernacular has employed many instances of rhyming slang, as have some British sub-cultures, such as Cockney (the source of some of the Aussie examples).
*@TesterAnimal1's* VinBlanc (French pronunciation) = Plonk being one of many.
Other examples inc: Red (tomato) sauce = Dead Horse. Consequently, Worcestershire sauce is called Black Horse. "I'm gonna take a Captain Cook" = "I'm going to have a look" (the Cockneys would say "go for a Butchers Hook"). The list is extensive. During WW2 Aussie troops were wont to refer to a visiting American soldier as a "Seppo" (typically Aussie shortening of "Septic Tank", rhyming slang for "Yank"). Perhaps there is an episode topic here for Jess & Rob?
"I fart in your general direction " is the best insult ever written
Hah! I was about to write a comment about the French Knights in "Monty Python & the Holy Grail".
"You 2nd-hand electric, donkey-bottom biters!"
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" etc
Groucho Marx once quipped, "Two more brains and you'd be a half wit."
Groucho was a master of the insult. A hilarious master of the insult.😄
Many - _many_ - years ago I was told that if I had "2 more brain cells, you would pass for a cabbage." Took me a long time to get over that one. (I think I have.)
A "brat" in Old Welsh (and related Brittonic Celtic languages) was a piece of cloth, often used to swaddle a child. It survives in modern (southern) Welsh as a word for "apron"; perhaps still resonating with the idea of a child "clinging on to the apron strings".
Interesting. In modern Irish "brat" is a flag or banner, again from a piece of cloth.
I've also read it theorized that the cloth connection gives "brat" the implication of a child in rags, either because they're impoverished or unwanted.
In another connection to this episode, it's found in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie ("beggar with thy brattis").
- Jess
Brat in Polish means "brother"
@@tomrogue13 In Ukrainian, as well. Ukrainian has a lot of borrowed words from neighboring countries: one of the benefits, if you will, of having a desirable country whose territory has changed hands a lot.
@@tomrogue13 Oh my! I shall forthwith refrain from eating Bratwurst :(
• I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. - English Professor, Ohio University
• He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. - Oscar Wilde
• Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad name. - Henry Kissinger
• He occasionally stumbles over the truth, but he quickly picks himself up and acts as though nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill, about a politician
Kissinger should talk…
'I laughed from the moment I picked up your book to the moment I put it down. Someday I intend to read it' - Groucho Marx.
Just a reminder: Henry Kissinger himself gave around 99% of all politicians in the world a bad name!
• Parts of his writings are good, and parts are original. Unfortunately none of the good parts are original and none of the original parts are good - review of author L.Ron Hubbard
Quite the chutzpah by the evil dwarf who lived far too long.
Along the lines of "I desire we may be better strangers," is "That comment was a missed opportunity to practice the crucial art of remaining silent."
I fell immense pride when, as a foreigner, I can follow this... Jess and Rob are great fun for a language nerd. Real English tutors while they are just having fun with words.
Of sexual innuendo in insults: A certain politician's "crowd sizes".
I'm fond of the line from one of the Blackadder productions: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has _long_ since departed."
Edmund always had a lovely selection of insults to choose from, some quite long and involved - and having to think about it briefly just made them funnier. It's rather like giving someone scatological culinary recommendations. 😁
If you work in a service industry job you’ll have probably met a few Custards - people who are both customer and bastard.
Slightly less nastily, there are a few "Cools" - Customers who are fools.
Cowardly custard, The Others.
I remember an old insult of having custard for brains. Similar to Twain's Puddin' Head Wilson.
I love the word nincompoop. Reminds me of a lovely chap I used to work with years ago. We asked him if he was going to join the gang for an after work cheeky beer or two, and he replied "No, sorry, I'm going to be a nincompoop again". We all just stood there staring at him, until I piped up "Do you mean party-pooper?". He did, and we all honked with laughter. I still use it to describe a no-show and it still makes me smile.
“He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.”-Saki (H.H. Monroe)
There are insults that can be understated and devastating, but the most fun insult I’ve ever heard is on Top Gear, where James May said to Jeremy Clarkson:
“You are an apocalyptic dingleberry.”
There is no comeback from that.
My shepherd friends tell me that a dingleberry is the sheep dung that gets caught in their rumps. It may have started as "dangleberry(?)
@@CastlebayNet_Music I've always used it to describe a nose-drip that just hangs there too.
My father, from Oklahoma, taught me some good ones “Your brain would rattle around in a celery seed like a pea in a bushel basket!” And there is a person with a face like a bucket of eels.
A colleague once described a certain student as “having a brain so small it would rattle around in a flea’s butt like a bb in a boxcar.” Akin to your father’s bon mot.
WS Gilbert in Ruddigore has a collection:
"Coward, poltroon, shaker, squeamer,
Blockhead, sluggard, dullard, dreamer,
Shirker, shuffler, crawler, creeper,
Sniffler, snuffler, wailer, weeper,
Earthworm, maggot, tadpole, weevil!"
"Somewhere a village is missing its idiot..." This has circulated over a hundred years and supposedly originated in British or American military or naval officer ratings. I still find occasion to use it.
Yes, that is a good one in some situations.
Sergeant Major to incompetent private: "Somewhere out there is a tree that's breathing out oxygen just for you, I want you to find it & apologise".
One of my favorite insults from Lord of the Rings was Samwise Gamgee's recollection of the words his old gaffer would have for him: "You're nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee!" []
You fool of a took!
I was hoping for an etymology of "git". It's been a topic of conversation in my family for decades. I always thought it was derived from Hindi and meant something like "commoner" because there was, or perhaps still is, a brand of Indian food called "Gits". However, I have also heard that it is a variant of Scottish "Get" which meant an illegitimate child, a bastard. I suppose that is probably the more correct origin, but I did get a kick out of seeing boxes of Gits. Also, Github is so named because the person who created it said he was a git.
You're right, the second one is the correct one, same energy as "brat," dating back to at least the 1700s. But I agree, the box of gits is a fantastic mental image. 😆
"Were I like thee I'd throw away myself." -Timon of Athens.
"You cram these words in my ears against the stomach of my sense." -The Tempest.
"Go thou, and fill another room in hell." -Richard II.
"I do desire we may be better strangers." -As You Like It.
"Thou clay-brained guts, thou knott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch." -Henry IV.
"You are as a candle, the better part burnt out." -Henry IV.
"She is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her." -Comedy of Errors.
"But he has not so much brain as ear-wax..." -Troilus and Cressida.
"A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!" -The Tempest.
"I can never see him but I am heart-burned an hour after." -Much Ado About Nothing.
"More of your conversation would infect my brain." -Coriolanus.
"His face is the worst thing about him." -Measure for Measure.
"Her beauty and her brain go not together." -Cymbeline.
"Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!" -Timon of Athens.
"Direct thy feet where thou and I henceforth may never meet." -Twelfth Night.
"... A rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggardly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy-worsted-stocking knave... and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander and the son and heir of a mongrel... one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition." -King Lear.
"What fools these mortals be."-A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Can I add: 'The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon' - Macbeth
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I always liked Coriolanus's ridicule of the tribunes, who represented the Plebeians in the Roman government "this Triton of the minnows!"
@@michaelkelleypoetry 😆😅😂
I love how they both find joy in the word itself, not so much how hurtful the word could be. I love it! Gotta not a too sensitive 🤭
Ah no, must is "new" unfermented wine. Mustard being a sauce made from grape juice and crushed mustard seeds. Most modern mustard uses white grape vinegar, but it can use violet colored grape juice.
Ah, thank you! Proof that I'd make a terrible host for an oenology podcast. - Jess
@@WordsUnravelled if course that's French, German (senf) and English mustard. Italian mostarda is made with fruit preserve in a ground mustard seed syrup.
Yes, the Violet Mustard seems a little fruitier too. It's my fave!
I am old enough to remember the late 1960s early 70s when the word bad became complementary.
The word 'sick' has more recently gone through a similar transformation, of course, and is used nowadays by young folk to mean 'excellent'.
A brat used to be an insulting term for a young child, as in “a spoiled brat“. So it later became particularly insulting when applied to young adults.
Also, about twenty years ago, a toymaker came our with a series of girls' dolls with oversized heads and extremely edgy clothes. The dolls were called "Bratz"
Such as specific actors in teen themed movies of the eighties.
Brat underwent amelioration years ago, being used to refer to children who grew up in military families -- both by others and by ourselves. Found this: www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/article/2060438/military-brat-do-you-know-where-the-term-comes-from/
@@BillPatten-zh6lx Ah yes, and they were dubbed 'the Brat Pack'. That was surely a seminal moment in changing or extending the use of 'brat' to insult young adults.
As far as I'm aware, it still is an insult for a child (or a person acting childishly). In an interesting connection to another part of this episode, one of its first known instances of "brat" for a child, particularly a ragged or poor one, is found in The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie ("beggar with thy brattis") in this passage that also contains a much saltier compound on the next line! Bleeped in case YT doesn't like it:
Iersche brybour baird, wyle beggar with thy brattis,
C*ntbittin crawdoun, Kennedy, coward of kynd,
Evill farit and dryit, as Densmen on the rattis,
Lyk as the gleddis had on thy gulesnowt dynd,
Mismaid monstour, ilk mone owt of thy mynd,
Renunce, rebald, thy rymyng, thow bot royis.
Full text here: www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/display/10.1093/actrade/9780198118886.book.1/actrade-9780198118886-div1-24
- Jess
Some of my favorite insults come from the 1970s sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter." The very first episode there is a battle of insults which was known by the slang at the time as "ranking."
Here's one from Saki (H.H. Monroe)
Bore: "Remember me? You probably don't recognise me with my moustache"
Clovis: "On the contrary, your moustache is the only thing about you that is at all familiar"
@@BrennanYoung 🤣
I saw a census record for a relative that referred to him as an "imbecile". He had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child.
It was a medical term before it was an insult.
I think that in one of the US censuses there was even a column to be checked if the person was was an imbecile.
@@bobs12andahalf2 I was just about to say the same thing🎼🤘🏻
John, i’m sure you already knew that it was a medical term😊
When I was young, a family we knew had a child who was clinically a cretin, which is a medical term that has been co-opted as an insult.
During the UN International Year of the Disabled, English songwriter Ian Dury (who had been disabled by polio as a child) wrote "Spasticus Autisticus" as a response to the international year, which he found patronizing. It was quickly banned from airplay and widely "tsk-tsked", but would later be featured as paet of the opening of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
My favourites are the Sentence Insult. E.G. "I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire"
There's an online comic called Achewood that once used the word "clopsy" to mean drunk (as in "Oh man, you know I get all clopsy on the Scotch!"). I always liked that one and use it from time to time. Even though it's a total invention, its meaning is obvious in context.
Another word that has the ending -psy and has to do with drunkenness is tipsy.
Thanks Jess and Rob for this enjoyable series of videos. As a non native English speaker I found it really interesting, instructive and captivating. There is just one thing that annoys me and I am almost sure you are not aware of, if you turn on the subtitles, thing that helps me out a lot to fully understand the richness of your content, the words and some other informations that appears in the bottom of the screen is hidden. Keep on doing this great job.
On the "-ard" suffix you forgot to include "dotard" which is one I learned from Kim Jung Il of all people, when he wrote it as an insult to Donald Trump (before they "fell in love" that is)
The most withering insults are the understated variety: "that's an interesting idea, we'll circle back to it" or "wow, what a brave outfit"
"what a nimrod, what a maroon" - Bugs Bunny
I'm pretty sure the second word you used in the Bugs quote is a vile insult, but common at the time period it was written for bugs .
@@anitapeludat256 maybe, but probably just mispronouncing moron - as they also do with imbecile.
@@anitapeludat256 I'd like someone to elaborate on that "maroon" insult please 🙏
Fun show as always. Thanks guys…
As for “nincompoop”… I suspect I’m wrong but I’ve always conjectured that it is a twisting of the word “incompetent.” Seems like a far toss, but as an insult it is often used to insult someone who has done a task badly. So - a personal etymology and most likely errant, but there you are. If I did badly you can call me a nincompoop! I’ll take it like a dork.
My mother’s favorite insult that she used during the late forties early fifties, someone that was incompetent was the meaning that I got, so your guess at the entomology sounds correct to me.
@@july8xx Finally! Someone lends some credence to my etymological guesstimate. Thanks for that...
Two personal favorites: “He’s a bubble off plumb,” and “He’s not reading vespers from a full psalter”.
I love those! I also like "he's not playing with a full deck of cards!" Or the derogatory "that's as funny as a fart in a spacesuit".
Love a bubble off plumb 😊 It would roll off the tongue nicely
One of my favorite insults is "lickspittle". It refers to a lacky or toady who is such a sycophant that they would literally lick the spit of their object of adoration off of the ground.
While I used to use "nimrod" occasionally as an insult, the music geek in me has changed my perception of that word. My mind often goes first the the beautiful 9th variation of Elgar's Enigma Variations (which I actually happened to have on in the background while listening to this podcast, and the "Nimrod" Variation was on when you were discussing that word). The variation was dedicated to his friend and editor Augustus J. Jaeger (Jaeger coming from the German for hunter), who encouraged him to keep composing when he felt burned out. That's the kind of "nimrod" I wouldn't mind being.
never heard that used in the real world
I say an insult I got from my mom that know one seems to know: “ Oh my - he’s a house full.” meaning someone who takes all your time, energy, brain power, etc to interact with or be around.
love it! gonna start using it!!
and supposedly in the southern states of USA they say"bless his/her heart" in a similar manner.
@@conniebruckner8190 mom is from the Appalachia area although she never did do “bless her heart.” LOL
* no one
Bless his little heart can have so many different meanings in the South a few of them not even insulting
I love Sketchy as an insult. It basically means that something is isn't well thought out, not fully formed, or downright deceptive. Applied to a person it says that they are dodgy, and liable to scam you, or rob you. Applied to a place it indicates the place in dangerous in some way, eg that Alleyway is sketchy (You could get mugged down there), or that ladder is sketchy (Liable to break).
It's quite versatile.
I feel Americans use it differently to us in the UK.
Kind of like Shady.
@@auldfouter8661How do you use it in the UK?
i can't believe i only *just now* realized that "sketchy" probably comes from the idea of a "rough sketch"
@@auldfouter8661 Interesting. How is it used in the UK?
@22:05 "underneath either you or I"? Come now, Rob. You must do better! 😂
I assume nincompoop to be another version of "incompetent"
I cannot hear it without thinking of the great Nero Wolfe!
"You ought to be in show business, you have a face for radio."
I'd really love an episode on Victorian slang 🙏🏼
Capital!
Or 1920's slang
Dr. Seuss's "You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile" from the Grinch is one of my favourites
Speaking of cartoon characters as insults, Dilbert predates Scott Adams by a fair bit - there was a WW2 cartoon character named Dilbert used in training videos for US pilots. Dilbert did all the things pilots were very specifically not supposed to do, and the cartoon would then play out the consequences upon Dilbert.
The US Navy still uses a contraption for pilot training to simulate getting out of a cockpit after a water landing called the Dilbert dunker.
This program is like an extended version of a conversation I recall fondly from the 1980s. In those days I worked at an art museum that people used to rent for lovely parties. While the guests were eating, we folks guarding the upstairs art had no guarding to do. One evening we devoted our free time to discussing insults for the benefit of one of us who had immigrated to the US and had great English, but she always wanted to learn more. It was a fun and informative chat, just like this episode!
Small selection from different eras
1940s - Heel, Cad,
1950s - Drip
1960s - Sweat or Sweat hog
1970s - Turkey
1980s - Dweeb
1990s - Poser
From Star Trek, "You ugly bag of mostly water". Loved this.
Don’t forget Dr. Smith to the Robot: “Come along, you bellicose bucket of bolts.”
Another Star Trek insult is "He is a waste of skin."
"Nimrod" is also a beautiful piece of music composed by Edward Elgar, part of his /Enigma Variations/. Look it up, sit back, and enjoy.
This is an enlightening vlog, I am from Mexico and most of the time I work with persons from the United States, and seldom with people form UK.
I have learn a lot about the way english is spoken in US and UK.
Thank you for sharing.
I’m surprised Jess didn’t also mention the Flyting of Loki, aka the Lokasenna, where Loki gets into an insult battle with the other Norse gods 😂
In the TV version of the film Repo Man, the frequently said word MF was replaced by “melon farmer”.
the movie Johnny Dangerously has a gangster who frequently butchers expressions. Lots of good ones there, the best being "farging icehole".
There's also the British propensity to turn any noun into an insult by prefacing it with 'you absolute...' Can't believe you missed that one, Rob, you absolute beeswax. 😂
Ones I have reason at some time:
"All hat, no cattle" is a good one in some situations.
"Not the sharpest spoon in the drawer" mixes in some humor from using "spoon"
"There is White-Out on their monitor" kind of came and went in the early days of PCs.
"An 8 bit mind in a 16/32/64 bit world" is another PCs era one.
Nerd was a word being used by artists for such things as dirt and eraser crumbs that had to be removed from the artwork long before it got applied to people, I think. I was hearing it in that context in the early 1960s while doing newspaper work. There's also nerdle, a term of art meaning a dollop of some semi-liquid dispensed somehow as needed, like the bit of toothpaste you put on your toothbrush. Nerdle has appeared in legal papers involving lawsuits about patents for producing striped toothpaste.
This certainly sounds feasible, and likely explains the "Nerds" title for the Wonka candy little bits.
"Nerd" was a common insult on the TV show Happy Days, which was made in the 1970s but took place in the 1950s. As a child in the 70s watching this show, I wasn't familiar with the term at first, so I asked my mom since she would have direct knowledge of the 50s. She said she'd never heard that term and stated (apparently incorrectly) that it had been made up for that show. Maybe it just hadn't been that popular in her circles and/or at that time. What I do know, though, is that it suddenly became a popular word at my school because of its frequent use on Happy Days (which was one of the most popular shows at the time).
Aah, such an educational & culturally-enlightening show, AND the advent of Mork from Ork (Robin Williams' first acting role!). Sit on it Potsie! Shazbat! Nanu nanu!
@@VJacquette I was a child in the 50s, a teen in the 60s. I don’t remember “nerd” being used, and I probably would have been called one if it had. Egghead would have been equivalent. Just being called an intellectual would have been an insult in itself.
This omitted two of my favorites that happen to be compounds based on "lick." Bootlick and lick-spittle. Too bad the latter is too archaic to use in a conversation without derailing it.
On amelioration, I expect that some very ameliorated common words were once graphically sexual, e.g. hot rod, joystick, rock and roll, jazz. Some pretty foul words in UK English are used without qualm in the USA. There's spunk (meaning resilience or determination in the US) and bugger (never used as a verb unless in the UK sense, but an endearment as a noun in the US: "What a feisty little bugger your dog is!"
also Pot-licker
My mother & her sister (my Aunt) used to call us over with "Oi, bugger-me, come over here", until I explained to them what "bugger" meant.
My mom was from the American south, and she often said “Bless your heart.” I’ve since learned that it can be a veiled insult.
"Oh, bless your little heart" I think is the longer form version.
I heard someone use "Bless their pointy little heads" too.
@@kensmith5694 Well, “Bless its Pointy Little Head” is a Jefferson Airplane album, and is not an insult.
Depends entirely on the tone used..
Southern belles are truly the experts at the usage.
Whoopi Goldberg uses "Bless you" that way in Sister Act.
I have that mug! My favourite taunt from that one is to call someone, "light of brain."
A number of cumulus clouds are accumulating
Was the cumulus cloud accumulation cumbersomely clotted?
I particularly like the insult of referring to an unwanted person at a social gathering as a “social moth”
as opposed to a wallflower?
A techie joke goes ‘what is the difference between a geek and a nerd - the geek is employable!’
@@conniebruckner8190 possibly as opposed to a social butterfly
Exactly. They might think they are a social butterfly, but in reality they have no elegance, bash into things and are generally annoying.
"Last night I was thoroughly plugged..." There's no way he said that by accident.
Since 1967, one particular Shakespearean insult has stuck in my head--my friend Robin and I (we were both 13 at the time) were quite DORKY and used this one whenever we wanted to insult someone. "Rump-fed Ronyon"--loved it, and remember it to this day!
Oh dear, gazeboed and carparked are very appropriate. It's far safer remaining slightly squiffy.
"Damn your eyes" is a personal favourite in a historical context, but a bit aggressive for modern use sadly.
"Damn your eyes" saw extensive use on the British sitcom Ghosts, where it was the catchphrase of the character Thomas Thorne
@@bobbyg1068 Ah not seen it, glad the phrase has made a comeback!
This show brings me such joy. Thank you!
WOW! That is so generous, thank you very, very much. We're thrilled you like the show!
R & J
Insult, consult, result
When i was a teen in the 70s, we used the word spastic and spaz a lot. I used to say stuff like "she has a lot of spazamataz". It was often used as a synonym for someone extremely clumsy.
Yeah, I've seen 'spaz' used as a synonym for 'klutz'.
That there’s a wheelchair brand named Spazz strikes me (as a Brit) as rather dubious. In my childhood, spaz was a playground insult.
@@fburton8 It sounds like an example of those to whom an insult has been applied embracing it to ameliorate it. Like 'queer'.
It doesn’t seem to have survived the 80s, so a short lived insult. Possibly because of Hollywood using it as a way to “spot the bully”.
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father stank of elderberries!"... The French Taunter in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
I fart in your general direction!
Spastic is still used in medical descriptions such as spastic colon and spastic foot.
Are either of you fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic War nautical novels? They are full of wonderful insults - O'Brian had a gift for writing authentic sounding dialogue, clearly well researched. One of the protagonists, Stephen Maturin (an able linguist himself) is prone to producing long strings of eloquent insults when provoked: "you ignorant, incompetent whey-faced nestlecock"; "infamous, double-poxed baboon"; "thou art the offspring of an impotent mole and a dissolute bat"; "a deeply stupid, griping, illiberal, avid, tenacious pinchfist lickpenny, a sordid lickpenny and a shrew" - to give but a few examples! The books, and Maturin's character in particular, are a delight for those who love language.
The recent-ish (post-2000 or so) trend for compound insults in the form [rude word] + [random animal] has given us such wonders as:
Twatbadger, Spunkferret, Shitsquirrel. You can use pretty much any combination, even "Cockwomble" which includes a fictional animal.
Legally speaking Bastard indicates an acknowledged child born out of wedlock as opposed to a child denied by the father. It was partiicularly important among the gentry because it granted the child status as part of the family. In heraldry this was denoted by the bar sinister over the family arms, which is a diagonally line running from left to right.
Bar Sinister as a mark of bastardy is a myth. The first problem is a bar goes straight across the shield and cannot be either sinister or dexter. What people mean is a Bend Sinister, which is a diagonal stripe, but even then, it is wrong. Bastards have new designs that while they often relate to the fathers’ arms, they do not have a specific “code” for the relationship. Some of Charles II bastards have a baton sinister which maybe where the myth originated.
@@hempsellastro What I was visualizing as you describe it was a bend, sorry for mixing them up. And thank you for the clarification, I should take it up with my Med History lecturer from Uni although it was an awfully long time ago. Possibly long enough I may have misremembered.
😄
@@Charliemonsteruk I think it more likely your uni lecturer was wrong. It always surprises me the degree to which medieval historians are rather hazy on heraldry, and how it uses changed over the period. Especially given how important it was to the people at the time (well OK to the rich people at the time). However your overall point was a good one, “bastard” was not an insult but indicted an important relationship.
And their surname was "Fitz + father's name" e.g Fitzpatrick = the bastard son of Patrick. Fitzroy by the way was the bastard son of the king.
Don't knock the Bastards - a pair of Bastards were responsible for rebuilding a lot of Blandford Forum in Dorset.
I'm not a native English speaker. The first (and only) time I saw the word "nincompoop" was on the cover of Mike Oldfield's record Amarok which gives a warning that "This record could be hazardous to the health of cloth-eared nincompoops."
It was in the 90s, there was no internet to speak of and I didn't know what the word meant, I didn't find it in the dictionary. So I ended up asking our American English teacher at school and she gave me only a very vague answer😁
Exactly what I just wanted to write 😊
@@hhgygy Really? It's cool to hear you had the same experience! 🙂👍
@@DusanPavlicek78 Mike Oldfield is my all-time favourite
it's a bit old-fashioned, I'd associate it with the 1940's. The kind of thing a bullying schoolmaster would call a young child who's not a very good student
@@IanKemp1960 Thank you. I think that was the intention of the message on the album cover: a tongue in cheek nudge to annoy those people who are ready to be annoyed by it 😅
A lot of good insults have been attributed to Churchill, but perhaps falsely. Supposedly, referring to John Foster Dulles, he said, "Dull, duller, Dulles." He also supposedly referred to someone, Eden, I think, as having "delusions of adequacy". Lady Astor once said to him, "Winston, you're drunk", to which he replied, "Madam, you're ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober."
During the post-war election campaign, Winston is reputed to have referred to his opponent in the phrase "an empty taxi drew up, and out stepped Mr. Attlee"
He once referred to Macmillan as "6ft 2ins of madly insane publisher".
@@michaelstamper5604 A modest man, with much to be modest about.
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." / Winston Churchill, in response: "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
"Flighting" sounds like an early version of the Dozens.
I think it's "flyting" or "fliting".
Trash-talk
This is exactly what I came here to say! I do wish they had mentioned the Dozens.
The look on Rob’s face @ 32:11 😂
Re "cowardy custard": the colour yellow does actually come to mind in connection with being afraid. The liver plays a part, for when our liver is diseased, our complexion tends to turn yellow. Hence - "lily-livered", a popular term for cowardice. So... maybe that's the custard connection? Also, "yellow-bellied" springs to mind.
I HAVE THAT MUG! I was drinking coffee out of it while watching this. 😁 Love the podcast, just got a little behind and now getting caught up. ❤
In Australia FIGJAM (Fuck I'm Good, Just Ask Me) is used for someone who is too sure of their abilities and popularity. Drongo (obsolete), was the name of a race horse who placed 2nd and 3rd, but never won.
I use "FIGJAM" usually followed by "It's not arrogance if it's true"
FINALLY, I learn what "drongo" means. Thanks.
"Drongo" is not obsolete in my social circles .... it's still in common use (not at me!) ;)
"Drongo" is one of my brother's favorite insults. I've been hearing for over 40 years, ever since he got involved in politics.
"Why don't you come back when you've got less time?"
My favorite Shakespeare insult goes something like: "thou whoreson Zed, thou unnecessary letter"
If memory serves me correctly, the phrase Michael McIntyre used for being drunk was to be "bungalowed!"
I love that intelligent types initially owned the term geek, and have more recently appeared to have done the same with nerd. Great to see the use and meaning of words bend and change within our lifetime.
I am regularly reminded, as a software engineer, and by your shirt, about the "etymology" of the codes used by Windows systems to represent the end of a line of text. Other systems use a single character represented by the number 10, called "line feed", but windows uses two: a "carriage return" followed by a "line feed". The etymology is pretty clearly based on typewriters and teletype machines, indicating that you should return the print head carriage back to the starting position AND feed the paper forward by one line.
I feel like "carriage return" could be a good insult for a useless vestige.
“Hey, Buddy! Your nose smells.”
Noses run in my family!
I remember a meme that claimed that any word could be made into an insult by adding the phrase "you absolute".
I'm especially fond of "you absolute walnut." - Jess
Hmmm, I don't think that quite works. "You absolute unit" is unambiguously a compliment.
Remember "Geek Squad" as computer services techs.