I got this mug of Shakespearean insults from Bas Bleu (a catalog I recommend for book lovers), and I it has brought me great joy.  I am by nature a kind, encouraging person.  On occasion, however, someone does something that I find very irritating (am I being polite enough?), and so I read my mug and speak the insults in my head and have one of those moments when other people wonder what you are laughing at.  Here are my favorites (with acknowledgement to Bas Bleu, The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, and the Bard):

  1. All eyes and no sight
  2. Lump of foul deformity
  3. Elvish-mark’d abortive, rooting hog
  4. I do desire we may be better strangers
  5. Anointed bunch-back’d toad
  6. A fusty nut with no kernel
  7. Beetle-headed, flap-ear’d knave
  8. You rampallian! You fustilarian!
  9. Not so much brain as ear was

and my very favorite–  10. Veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.

I have no idea what “rampallian” or ” fustilarian” mean, but they are hilariously fun to say. shakespeare insults mug

 


One response to “Give me a sense of humor, Lord: Shakespeare did it best.”

  1. Debra Beilke Avatar

    I love Shakespearean insults! I once even gave extra credit to Introduction to Literature students if they could write down one or more Shakespearean insults on an exam. One of them wrote, “Shakespeare is a bad writer.” 🙂

    Like

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