Feeling a need for a change, something different, while I'm still contemplating all that has been shared over the last few days, and seeds for further discussions, and still feeling miserable with this damned lurgy, I started back clearing out some things these last few days and I came across some back issues of "Ireland's Own" which a friend had given me. Skimming through them before putting them in the recycling I had a few chuckles, and some of these would be, in a sense, at the cost of others, if they were being said in their barbed intent instead of me just reading them...insults! I love it. Would that we could craft as well ~ that with the delivery there was also a chuckle.
I also found a nice agreeable description of what this act of, not necessarily violent, invective means ~
"Insults may be defined at their simplest as remarks and descriptions not intended as complementary. An element of wit or justifiable rage is an essential ingredient if insult is not to degenerate into mindless abuse."
Ireland is not short of wit, not behind us, not around us, and, God please bless us here too, not ahead of us. "Nor is this site short of possibilities, or for that matter of degenerating into mindless abuse, though, wisely, most evidence of this has since been deleted. Wit is, in my limited experience, not confined to one race of people, nor is the well crafted insult. I know that some will say that there are races lacking the gene that allows them to concieve, create or understand satire, but I don't beleive that. There are just pockets of these, maybe aluminium in the water supply, not their fault. There are therapies that can address this lack or misunderstanding, and maybe that's what this thread is hoping to offer... Just for one point on that, from another land mass, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) is another favourite author and wit:
"An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before."
We exercise our skills at the music, but for some, another skill sometimes sluffed off as mere 'slagging', is the slinging of insults as endearments, or not, between friends, or not. Maybe it is because of an emotional handicap, we want to kiss the bodhran banger next to us but instead tell them to "fek off will yuh, the Salsa band meets here on Sundays."
Let's see, there's dear ol' Jonathan Swift, and how I love his recipe for how to deal with too many Irish babies ~
"No Men in Dublin go to Taverns (pubs) who are worth sitting with."
And there's the likes of Doctor Johnson, Samuel Johnson ~
"Dublin though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland."
But the role call is very long ~ James Joyce, Miles na Gopaleen, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Joseph O'Connor, Roddy Doyle... There's also the endless stream of anon's output ~
"~ as useful as a concrete currach."
"They'd have trouble spelling IQ."
And there's all those lovely instrument specific slings and slags... What better argument for the preservation of the bodhran and the banjo (I couldn't leave the one on its lonely) than the growing humour?
Here are a few resources, I'm sure there are others ~
"Book of Irish Insults"
by Sean McMahon
Publisher: Mercier Press (Feb 1997)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1856351629
ISBN-13: 978-1856351621
"The Feckin' Book of Irish Insults
for Gobdaws as Thick as Manure and Only Half as Useful"
by Colin Murphy & Donal O'Dea
O'Brien Press Ltd., 2006
ISBN-10: 0862789621
ISBN-13: 978-0862789626 http://www.obrien.ie/book653.cfm
Awa' An' Bile Yer Heid!: Scottish Curses and Insults (Paperback)
by David Ross (Author), Barbara Robertson (Illustrator)
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd (7 Sep 1999)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841580120
ISBN-13: 978-1841580128
We're off and away to the countryside to cough in the sun... I hope to see some good cough generating chuckles gathered here when I'm back recouperating...
Jim, yes, this was an idea of a steam valve, where maybe we could have some fun and vent spleen to the un-named, the real as imagined... I've read and heard some great insults over time but was too daft not to write them down. I remember a few, but I do remember that in my travels that was one way with dealing with stress, like those special jokes that doctors and nurses only tell to themselves. I hope to see the list grow. We've had fun with Limericks, now we can share pass insults back and forth, without it being personal, historic, local and newly 'composed'...
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to insult our fellow session.orgers, as I have found out often. It's a shame I think. For some people, a good old fashioned well-honed put down can be constructive. But alas, the omnipresence of the not-so-benevolent dictator with his over zealous delete button and withdrawing of access privileges often stifles our ability to act like normal human beings.
"we are not allowed to insult our fellow session.orgers" ~ Yes, that was why this option was considered, haveing seen a 'few' insults thrown around in my time on site here...
So, here's another one from history, and maybe at just the right time? The source is Anon ~
Here lies Aretino, Tuscan poet
Who spoke evil of everyone but God,
Giving the excuse, "I never knew Him."
The idea of this was 'general', not specific, slagging and insult without naming a person or institution, a steam valve and a possible creative outlet? You could do it fill in the blank __________
Yeah, that's all very well, the abstracted use of clever language, but surely the essence of the best insults is in the context?
Like when some woman said to Winston Churchill "Sir, you are drunk." And the famous retort: "Madam, you are ugly, though in the morning, I shall be sober".
"Belching at the table, and amongst all companies whatsoever, is a thing which the English possess no more scruples than they do coughing or sneezing."
Anon ~ "On a fine day the climate of England is like looking up a chimney; on a foul day, like looking down one."
We'd better start striking a balance here ~ Scotland
Samuel Johnson, 1700s ~
Johnson: " Sir, it is a very vile country."
Mr. S_ : "Well, Sir, God made it."
Johnson: "Certainly he did, but we must remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and comparisons are odious, Mr. S_, for God made Hell."
& back to Ireland ~
Samuel Johnson again ~
"The Irish are a fair people, they never speak well of one another."
Mark Twain ~
"Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him...
& back to Sammy ~ & America
"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."
Frances Trollope ~
"I hardly know any annoyance so deeply repugnant to English feelings as the incessant remoreseless spitting of Americans"
& from dear Walt Whitman, 2 at a stroke ~
"The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race."
Georges Clemenceau
"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civiliation."
Oscar Wilde ~ "Of course, America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
& ~ "It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners."
& a last swipe at a place I once called home ~ J.G.Millais, 1907 ~
"The purity of the air of Newfoundland is without doubt due to the fact the the people of the outports neer open their windows."
Goodnight all, pleasant dream and no nightmares unless your up for it...
Like when some woman said to Winston Churchill "Sir, you are drunk." And the famous retort: "Madam, you are ugly, though in the morning, I shall be sober
The concept of this, as I've tried to say earlier, was as a steam valve. Rudeness and insult is not unseen here in the mustard, it can at times be quite hot. Sometimes it burns itself out, sometimes it just disappears. In my current state of lurgy, and sensing a little of it here and there, I thought, maybe, if we opened up a thread to slag there would be an outpouring and that might make release some of that pent up tension. We all have it and there are times I lose it. I have a certain amount of clumsiness in my nature and am not unfamiliar with the stink of my own feet, and the taste when I overstep reason. I've choked on it. But, I'm glad to say, as these points of true loss of consideration to insult are not really that common, this attempt has not moved that fast forward.
I'm actually not that keen on national slurs, I hate them, but in a historical context can get a bit of a laugh out of them, and consider the sources and the times. Similar can be said about instruments. The best are those that actually do have a small bit of truth exaggerated, with wit. There aren't many. The ones I particularly find funny are because I can see myself in them. Being somewhat of a mongrel I can view those on a wider scale as potentially about the culchie in me...
Here's a bit of my own attempt at trying it creatively and in reference to nothing other than music, please ~
If you stopped wipping that thing with that damned shtick it might stop screaming. There are wonders what a little gentle persuasion and love will do, affectionate strokes and it is more likely to behave and answer you in kind...
Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. "Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence."
Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. "Switzerland is a place where they don't like tofight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate."
Statler and Waldorf - The Muppet Show. Statler: "Wake up, you old fool, you slept through the show." Waldorf: "Who's a fool? You watched it."
Cliff - Cheers: "I'm ashamed God made me a man." Carla: "I don't think God's doing a lot of bragging about it either."
Uh oh, the proverbs have entered the fray. Hey, I think you guys have helped to clear the lurgy. I actually got a fair night's sleep last night...
A concern shared is a concern halved!
~ but I have no intention of sharing this lurgy with anyone. You want a real laugh, in communicating with another member on site here they suddenly started coming down with similar symptoms...
If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Feeling a need for a change, something different, while I'm still contemplating all that has been shared over the last few days, and seeds for further discussions, and still feeling miserable with this damned lurgy, I started back clearing out some things these last few days and I came across some back issues of "Ireland's Own" which a friend had given me. Skimming through them before putting them in the recycling I had a few chuckles, and some of these would be, in a sense, at the cost of others, if they were being said in their barbed intent instead of me just reading them...insults! I love it. Would that we could craft as well ~ that with the delivery there was also a chuckle.
I also found a nice agreeable description of what this act of, not necessarily violent, invective means ~
"Insults may be defined at their simplest as remarks and descriptions not intended as complementary. An element of wit or justifiable rage is an essential ingredient if insult is not to degenerate into mindless abuse."
Ireland is not short of wit, not behind us, not around us, and, God please bless us here too, not ahead of us. "Nor is this site short of possibilities, or for that matter of degenerating into mindless abuse, though, wisely, most evidence of this has since been deleted. Wit is, in my limited experience, not confined to one race of people, nor is the well crafted insult. I know that some will say that there are races lacking the gene that allows them to concieve, create or understand satire, but I don't beleive that. There are just pockets of these, maybe aluminium in the water supply, not their fault. There are therapies that can address this lack or misunderstanding, and maybe that's what this thread is hoping to offer... Just for one point on that, from another land mass, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) is another favourite author and wit:
"An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before."
We exercise our skills at the music, but for some, another skill sometimes sluffed off as mere 'slagging', is the slinging of insults as endearments, or not, between friends, or not. Maybe it is because of an emotional handicap, we want to kiss the bodhran banger next to us but instead tell them to "fek off will yuh, the Salsa band meets here on Sundays."
Let's see, there's dear ol' Jonathan Swift, and how I love his recipe for how to deal with too many Irish babies ~
"No Men in Dublin go to Taverns (pubs) who are worth sitting with."
And there's the likes of Doctor Johnson, Samuel Johnson ~
"Dublin though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland."
But the role call is very long ~ James Joyce, Miles na Gopaleen, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Joseph O'Connor, Roddy Doyle... There's also the endless stream of anon's output ~
"~ as useful as a concrete currach."
"They'd have trouble spelling IQ."
And there's all those lovely instrument specific slings and slags... What better argument for the preservation of the bodhran and the banjo (I couldn't leave the one on its lonely) than the growing humour?
Here are a few resources, I'm sure there are others ~
"Book of Irish Insults"
by Sean McMahon
Publisher: Mercier Press (Feb 1997)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1856351629
ISBN-13: 978-1856351621
"The Feckin' Book of Irish Insults
for Gobdaws as Thick as Manure and Only Half as Useful"
by Colin Murphy & Donal O'Dea
O'Brien Press Ltd., 2006
ISBN-10: 0862789621
ISBN-13: 978-0862789626
http://www.obrien.ie/book653.cfm
Awa' An' Bile Yer Heid!: Scottish Curses and Insults (Paperback)
by David Ross (Author), Barbara Robertson (Illustrator)
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd (7 Sep 1999)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841580120
ISBN-13: 978-1841580128
We're off and away to the countryside to cough in the sun... I hope to see some good cough generating chuckles gathered here when I'm back recouperating...
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
ceolachan
This is good and funny ,
A little Banter never harmed anyone..
jim,,
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
"A Hungarian is someone who can get into a revolving door behind you and come out in front of you..."
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/insult.html
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
"If you moved any slower a turtle would beat you in a two foot race walking back wards'
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by billcampbell
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Jim, yes, this was an idea of a steam valve, where maybe we could have some fun and vent spleen to the un-named, the real as imagined... I've read and heard some great insults over time but was too daft not to write them down. I remember a few, but I do remember that in my travels that was one way with dealing with stress, like those special jokes that doctors and nurses only tell to themselves. I hope to see the list grow. We've had fun with Limericks, now we can share pass insults back and forth, without it being personal, historic, local and newly 'composed'...
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to insult our fellow session.orgers, as I have found out often. It's a shame I think. For some people, a good old fashioned well-honed put down can be constructive. But alas, the omnipresence of the not-so-benevolent dictator with his over zealous delete button and withdrawing of access privileges often stifles our ability to act like normal human beings.
# Posted on March 2nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
"we are not allowed to insult our fellow session.orgers" ~ Yes, that was why this option was considered, haveing seen a 'few' insults thrown around in my time on site here...
The source is Anon ~
So, here's another one from history, and maybe at just the right time?
Here lies Aretino, Tuscan poet
Who spoke evil of everyone but God,
Giving the excuse, "I never knew Him."
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
The idea of this was 'general', not specific, slagging and insult without naming a person or institution, a steam valve and a possible creative outlet? You could do it fill in the blank __________
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
I haven't actually read him (I must) - but P.G.Wodehouse was a master of this, to judge by quotes I've seen.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Yeah, that's all very well, the abstracted use of clever language, but surely the essence of the best insults is in the context?
Like when some woman said to Winston Churchill "Sir, you are drunk." And the famous retort: "Madam, you are ugly, though in the morning, I shall be sober".
It's the context
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
You mean like: the woman of the house is really an attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done?
I've been married for 22 years, can you believe it.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Divorcee, on being asked why he preferred having a dog to finding another partner:
"DOGS DON'T SHOP!"
(I believe this one's a true quote.)
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
A long time favourite ~ Groucho Marx, though I couldn't find the music quotes, here's one I like ~
"From the moment I picked up your book until the moment I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend to read it..."
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Ah yes P. G. Wodehouse!
I remember a tv series called A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
Great stuff!!
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Groucho: "I'd never join a club which would have me as a member."
Also, "If a woman speaks and there is no man around to hear him, is he still wrong?"
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by grumblingoldwoman
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
'grumblingoldwoman' ~ I love it... Do we have a 'growlingoldman'?
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
1698 ~ H. Misson de Valbourg, translated ~
"Belching at the table, and amongst all companies whatsoever, is a thing which the English possess no more scruples than they do coughing or sneezing."
Anon ~ "On a fine day the climate of England is like looking up a chimney; on a foul day, like looking down one."
We'd better start striking a balance here ~ Scotland
Samuel Johnson, 1700s ~
Johnson: " Sir, it is a very vile country."
Mr. S_ : "Well, Sir, God made it."
Johnson: "Certainly he did, but we must remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and comparisons are odious, Mr. S_, for God made Hell."
& back to Ireland ~
Samuel Johnson again ~
"The Irish are a fair people, they never speak well of one another."
Mark Twain ~
"Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him...
& back to Sammy ~ & America
"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."
Frances Trollope ~
"I hardly know any annoyance so deeply repugnant to English feelings as the incessant remoreseless spitting of Americans"
& from dear Walt Whitman, 2 at a stroke ~
"The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race."
Georges Clemenceau
"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civiliation."
Oscar Wilde ~ "Of course, America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
& ~ "It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners."
& a last swipe at a place I once called home ~ J.G.Millais, 1907 ~
"The purity of the air of Newfoundland is without doubt due to the fact the the people of the outports neer open their windows."
Goodnight all, pleasant dream and no nightmares unless your up for it...
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
I wrote it wrong:
If a man speaks and there's no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong.
There is a man but he wouldn't consider himself "growling." I don't consider him growling either -
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by grumblingoldwoman
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
I've heard it as "If a man speaks in a forest and there's no one else to hear him, is he still wrong?"
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Like when some woman said to Winston Churchill "Sir, you are drunk." And the famous retort: "Madam, you are ugly, though in the morning, I shall be sober
It wasn't some woman,it was Bessie Braddock.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by dafydd
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Thanks for the clarification Dafydd...
"~ the MP for Liverpool Exchange for 24 years ~ "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/12/20/local_history_bessie_braddock_feature.shtml
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
The concept of this, as I've tried to say earlier, was as a steam valve. Rudeness and insult is not unseen here in the mustard, it can at times be quite hot. Sometimes it burns itself out, sometimes it just disappears. In my current state of lurgy, and sensing a little of it here and there, I thought, maybe, if we opened up a thread to slag there would be an outpouring and that might make release some of that pent up tension. We all have it and there are times I lose it. I have a certain amount of clumsiness in my nature and am not unfamiliar with the stink of my own feet, and the taste when I overstep reason. I've choked on it. But, I'm glad to say, as these points of true loss of consideration to insult are not really that common, this attempt has not moved that fast forward.
~
I'm actually not that keen on national slurs, I hate them, but in a historical context can get a bit of a laugh out of them, and consider the sources and the times. Similar can be said about instruments. The best are those that actually do have a small bit of truth exaggerated, with wit. There aren't many. The ones I particularly find funny are because I can see myself in them. Being somewhat of a mongrel I can view those on a wider scale as potentially about the culchie in me...
Here's a bit of my own attempt at trying it creatively and in reference to nothing other than music, please
If you stopped wipping that thing with that damned shtick it might stop screaming. There are wonders what a little gentle persuasion and love will do, affectionate strokes and it is more likely to behave and answer you in kind...
Ah, now if only I could take my own counsel, eh?
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
To a bodhranista ~ "Is that the skin of your first wife?"
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
To another bodhranista ~ "I see you've finally been circumsized and the doc slipped. What a novel use of the remains."
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Now what about uilleann pipes?
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
My favourite one about the pipes - in reference to the extended fox chase: (I can't remember who said it, but I can remember who it was said of)
"All his playing sounds like the fox dying."
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
That's one I hadn't heard... Thanks Michael, that got me coughing again...
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Though, I have heard what could be described as a dying fox...
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Ha, yeah, though it's not merely a fox dying, it's a fox being torn to shreds by a pack of vicious hounds.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
I think the same woman said to Churchill (paraphrasing)
“If you were my husband I would poison your tea”
to which he replied “Madam, if I were your husband I’d drink it”
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by BegF
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
http://timesonline.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/07/bessie_braddock.jpg
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Come on, Michael - you're on the brink of your 5000th post!
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by domnull
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
does that include all the ones jeremy deletes?
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Doesn't a picture paint a thousand words !
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by BegF
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Didn't Telly Savalas do that?
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by domnull
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. "Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence."
Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. "Switzerland is a place where they don't like tofight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate."
Statler and Waldorf - The Muppet Show. Statler: "Wake up, you old fool, you slept through the show." Waldorf: "Who's a fool? You watched it."
Cliff - Cheers: "I'm ashamed God made me a man." Carla: "I don't think God's doing a lot of bragging about it either."
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by BegF
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
"When you shake hands with a Greek, count your fingers afterwards."
"Where you've got two Greeks, you've got three political parties."
(Greek proverbs)
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
Uh oh, the proverbs have entered the fray. Hey, I think you guys have helped to clear the lurgy. I actually got a fair night's sleep last night...
A concern shared is a concern halved!
~ but I have no intention of sharing this lurgy with anyone. You want a real laugh, in communicating with another member on site here they suddenly started coming down with similar symptoms...
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: If brains were taxed you'd be due a rebate...
think the same woman said to Churchill (paraphrasing)
“If you were my husband I would poison your tea”
to which he replied “Madam, if I were your husband I’d drink it”
No,that was Lady Astor.
# Posted on March 14th 2008 by dafydd