Your lazy, clueless stepbrother. The bully who never missed a chance to annoy you. Someone has wronged you and you want to get him off the pedestal using the right words. Insulting people effectively is not only about choosing the insult itself, but also about choosing the right words to get the attention of the one you want to insult.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Choosing the Insult Style
Step 1. Decide whether to use a general or specific insult
The insult can be generic, such as in a t-shirt with an offensive message intended for no one in particular, or directed at a specific person for a specific wrong. Generic insults are suitable for days when you feel angry at the world and want to be seen as a grumpy curmudgeon. It is best to use specific insults when you want to attack someone for a wrong right now.
- Being specific will help you focus on the individual behavior of the person, when it is only the person's action - and not themselves as a whole - that drives you to insult.
- Conversely, being generic can come in handy when you have had enough of a person due to their constant misbehavior and you have decided to cut all the bridges with this person. In this case, an antiquated "may you roam the world forever and never find a moment of peace" might be more effective than a few words from Don Rickle's repertoire.
Step 2. Choose whether to be direct or indirect
You can directly insult the recipient of your anger in no uncertain terms, curse him with false praise, or let someone else insult him for you.
- If you want to insult someone directly, you must be willing to confront others, whether they are the person you want to insult, or their friends and friends who may be within earshot. You must also be prepared to face any reprisals in the form of "counter-insults", threats and acts of violence against you or your belongings.
- To curse someone with false praise is to use words that sound innocent and even flattering, but that conceal an intention to insult. You could give someone "garlicky", for example, to compare the person to a head of garlic, or you could label someone who talks without a thread as a "phliarologist". This type of insult is most effective when directed at people with a vocabulary that is not too large and if spoken in a gentle tone of voice.
- Insulting someone else directly concerned may consist in reporting actual derogatory comments made by third parties, in "embellishing" these comments to make them offensive, or in attributing your comment to third parties. All this requires that the third party be someone whose opinion interests the recipient to such an extent that he does not even feel the need to verify the veracity of what you said.
Part 2 of 3: Choosing What to Insult
Step 1. Be aware of the background of the person concerned
With the advent of globalization, you are more likely to meet people from different backgrounds. Each culture has developed its own insults depending on the things it deems most offensive and these may or may not coincide with those of your culture.
- References to animals are very common, such as '' Schweinhund '' ("pig dog") and "Esel" ("donkey") in German.
- Scatological references (bathroom humor) are also common, such as naming someone a "best artist" in Ireland, indicating that the person pees on himself when drunk. Other nations prefer the second option as in the Bosnian "Sanjam da prdnem na tebe" ("I dream of defecating yourself").
- Some cultures prefer sexual references, such as "Ham sep lo" ("man wet with salty liquid") in Chinese - their way of defining someone who is obsessed with sex.
- Wishing someone harm always seems to be in vogue, as in the Dutch "’ Krijg de kanker "(" Get a cancer "). Then there is the Bosnian "A bog da ti kuca bila" (roughly "May your home appear live on Rai"), which is equivalent to wishing the VIP on duty to be stalked by paparazzi for the rest of his life for not having signed an autograph.
- Some insults are on the border between offensive and overtly joking, such as the Japanese "Tofu no kado ni atama wo butsuke shinjimae" ("May you hit your head on a corner of tofu and die"). You can use this insult against the VIP who didn't sign your autograph if he is a vegetarian or has a reputation for being unlucky or clumsy.
- Some cultures are noted for their intolerance towards the whims of others. In Yddish, for example, there are words to insult those who boast ("barimer"), those who eat too much ("fresser"), those who are stingy ("schlemazel"). Maybe they love "kvetch" (complaining) themselves.
- Sometimes you can use the etiquette rules of a particular culture to your advantage to increase the value of an insult. German has two forms of the second person singular: "Sie" and "du". It is considered rude to address someone like "du" if you don't know them well. To call a stranger "du Esel" is to add an insult to an insult.
- Pay attention to the type of insults you address, as some utterances could - in certain contexts - be mistaken for racism, with even violent reactions.
Step 2. Stick to what the recipient cares about most
Directly attacking the recipient with pet names is not always necessary. Rather, you may be insulting a person loved by the person concerned or someone you admire; or you may be belittling a skill that he brags about or is trying to master, carry around a certain way of behaving, or highlight something that you find particularly disturbing.
- Usually, the people the recipient will care most about are family members. A possible insult about a family member is the joke about the mother, where it is assumed how fat, lazy, ugly, old, poor, or stupid the mother of the person concerned can be: "Your mother is so old that her first boyfriend was a man. of Neanderthal ". These jokes began to circulate in the 1990s; in the mid-00s MTV even produced a show based on this type of insult.
- Among the skills that are usually insulted are driving or cooking, as in "You treat me like a God. All the things you cook for me are either burnt or a sacrifice." Similarly, the most effective insults involve those manners that the recipient is most self-aware of or those that he or she knows disturb you the most and that are often exaggerated. To make fun of these behaviors, they often mimic themselves in a hyperbolic way.
- Insulting the recipient's achievements can be particularly stinging if the person concerned has spent a lot of time and energy to achieve those results. Think how the writer S. J. Perelman after the publication of his first book when Groucho Marx told him: "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was doubled over with laughter. I intend to read it sooner or later. ".
Part 3 of 3: Word Choice Options
Step 1. Start with excuses to soften the blow
If you think the person concerned might take what you say the wrong way, soften the conversation by starting with something that sounds like an apology, like "with all due respect" or "I'm not saying this to make you angry."
The risk you run with this approach is that your apology will not be perceived as sincere after the recipient has heard the offensive part of the speech; moreover, saying that you are not trying to anger the person concerned could have the opposite effect
Step 2. Start with a harmless opening, then stick the knife into the sore
Start by saying something neutral or even positive about the recipient, then move on to offensive speech. This style is often used by stand-up comedians.
- Groucho Marx was a master of style, with phrases like "I never forget a face, but in your case he'll be happy to make an exception" and "I had a great night, but this isn't it".
- If you choose to use this style, take a short pause after opening before "delivering" the insult, unless this is rather short as in "I worship the land that awaits you".
Step 3. Get out what you need and move on
Sometimes you are too angry or too tired to introduce a fake apology or an innocent openness to the speech. In that case, go straight to the insult.
- Insults ad hominem, or those against the recipient as a person, are commonly expressed in this way: they can include a nickname ("Idiot!"), But also profanities or dry instructions on where the person concerned can go …
- Acts of incompetence can also be insulted like this: "Your kitchen sucks".
- This style works particularly well with made up insults, such as comedian Don Rickle's famous "hockey puck". (Rickles' insults are expressed so directly that the comedian has been given the nickname "Poison Merchant").
Advice
- If you are taking someone else's insults, an effective way to combat them is not so much to respond to the insults as to base your response on the insults you receive. A famous example is the argument between Winston Churchill and Lady Nancy Astor at a party at Blenheim Palace in the 1930s when Lady Astor angrily said to Winston, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your tea." Churchill replied with "Madam, if I were your husband I would gladly drink it".
- If you lack the quick reflexes required to counter an insult with another insult, another effective way to respond is with prolonged silence. This could effectively silence the insultor and the whole room. You can, at your choice, put your hand on your cheek and look the taunt in the face or sideways, like comedian Jack Benny.
- Excellent insults can be learned at "roasts", where a famous person is "honored" with false praise and moderate insults based on his personal accomplishments and character. In most cases, the insults are based on the public persona of the honored person, who usually has a few minutes at the end to retort.
Warnings
- Avoid being mean for no good reason with your insults. Save them for when you have a valid reason to refer them to the right people.
- Likewise, the less you remember swear words or scatological terms when you insult someone, the more effective they will be when you use them - and you can usually effectively insult whoever you want without using those terms.
- Above all, avoid the temptation of physical violence. Remember the words of Salvor Hardin, the character from Isaac Asimov's novel "Foundation": "Violence … is the last refuge of the incompetent!".
