# Somewhat Out of the Ordinary Insults that have Stuck in the Mind



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

An old favorite was a remark of George Wallace's when he ran for POTUS: he called a critic of his "a pointy-headed intellectual who can't park a bicycle straight!" Harsh words indeed. There is also World Wrestling Federation head Vince McMahon's denouncing those who dislike professional wrestling as "pencil-necked geeks". Ooh, that smarted, since I am a pencil-necked geek who loved "professional" wrestling when I was ten. Another was from a period melodrama of the Poldark variety, where someone in powdered wig and ruffles was accused of being "a strutting, impudent popinjay." Now that cuts to the bone.

Anyone else have some personal favorites?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I'll always remember when Reagan was running against President Carter and in the debates Reagan was asked about recession and replied (best I remember),

' A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. And a recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job." 

Don't know if that is an insult so much as a joke, but I suspect it had an insulting effect.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Spiro Agnew, always on the attack for Nixon, used various epithets and insults 'including "pusillanimous pussyfooters," "nattering nabobs of negativism," and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." In a speech denouncing the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, he characterized the war's opponents as "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." ' (Wiki)


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Florestan said:


> I'll always remember when Reagan was running against Carter and in the presidential debates Reagan was asked about recession and replied (best I remember),
> 
> ' A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. And a recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job."
> 
> Don't know if that is an insult so much as a joke, but I suspect it had an insulting effect.


I remember that one, and it was a beautiful and accurate put-down aimed at one of the worst Presidents I know.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The brilliant and acerbic physicist Wolfgang Pauli would denounce ideas that he thought utterly lacked any merit, as "not even wrong"-- they failed to rise to even that level. A useful concept.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Bulldog said:


> I remember that one, and it was a beautiful and accurate put-down aimed at one of the worst Presidents I know.


I respectfully suggest we not go down that path here.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Not surprisingly a lot of great quotes are political but there's no doubting that they provide great soundbites.

Winston Churchill on the man who replaced him as Prime Minister, Clement Attlee:

_"Mr Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about." _


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> Not surprisingly a lot of great quotes are political but there's no doubting that they provide great soundbites.
> 
> Winston Churchill on the man who replaced him as Prime Minister, Clement Attlee:
> 
> _"Mr Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about." _


Churchill also characterized another foe as "a sheep in sheep's clothing".


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I cherish my father's comment on a politician whose pompous burbling was on the radio: (said in a gruff Irish brogue)
"If that man knew a little more, he would be completely confused"


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

"You're as bright as a black hole and twice as dense."


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> I respectfully suggest we not go down that path here.


Check - I'm concise.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Speaking of Churchill, he once said:

"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

I heard the following on Short-Wave Radio today: Hysterical Harpy Hellary Clinton...


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2016)

A person of hidden shallows.


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2016)

"Half-animate abortion"--Dostoevsky _Crime and Punishment_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I like the story that ends, "That depends, sir, on whether I embrace your mistress or your morals."


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

"If there was a Romatic Era in Music then was there also an Intellectual Era?"
That's a burn if I've ever heard one.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Kontrapunctus said:


> "Half-animate abortion"--*Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment*.


^^^Gotta love that book.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

"Got a match?"
"Yeah. Your face and my a**."


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

geralmar said:


> "Got a match?"
> "Yeah. Your face and my a**."


Many may not understand this unless they were smokers back before the advent of butane lighters. Back then, not everybody carried a Zippo lighter (they was a fair amount of maintenance involved), and so book matches were the common way to light a cigarette. So you might pull out a cigarette, feel around your pockets and see you have no matches, turn to the next person and ask, "Got a match?" Just another reason to get away from that smoking crowd. Such crude jokes are rather juvenile. In fact, it seems I heard that one most in my high school days.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

There is a long history of insults being used in cricket (where it is called 'sledging') and some examples (not for the faint hearted) can be found at http://top20cricketsledges.blogspot.co.uk/ but my two favourites are:

1. Dennis Lillee had a sledge that he employed against many batsmen during his long cricket career.

"I can see why you are batting so badly, you've got some **** on the end of your bat"

At this point the batsman would usually flip his bat over and examine the end, to which Lillee would respond

"Wrong end mate"

2. One of the all time great bowlers, Glen McGrath was getting frustrated at being unable to dismiss little known Zimbabwean cricketer Eddo Brandes.

McGrath: "Why are you so fat?"

Brandes "Because every time I ****** your wife, she gives me a biscuit."


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Maurice Bowra was always good for a vituperative comment.

Speaking of a don at another college whom he disliked he said that it was extraordinary that Magdalen had elected a man "of no public virtues and no private parts".


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