The Art of the Insult

Before I begin, I wish to stress that this is a PG blog, and I do tend to monitor-slash-censor for the sake of my kids who do happen to read my blog. No I don’t force them to do so. Nor do I bribe them. I simply let curiosity get the best of them. I’m sneaky like that.

Anyway, I was watching TV last night, and heard a common and rather trendy insult being bandied about: douche bag. Now, being a gal, I am well aware of what an actual douche bag is. But I fail to see why it is considered an insult. A douche is designed as a cleansing agent, the bag HOLDS said cleansing agent. It is sterile and clean. The bag itself never becomes contaminated. It is an object that helps to aid in cleansing, people. How is THAT a bad thing? I think we are losing the art of the insult when we adopt terms from people who do not understand the true meaning of it. That’s just lazy. And we can and have done better than that. Shakespeare created hundreds of new words in his works, and we are letting them go to waste.

My blogger friend Nicki is a master of the insult. This blog post gives you an example of her linguistic prowess (warning: salty language). Just today she introduced me to another one at the social-site-with-faces. One I can’t repeat here, unfortunately. And let’s not forget our friend BC over at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler!! As scathing as cursing can be, one doesn’t have to rely on cussing to get a good insult across. The classic “bless your heart” goes a long way towards insulting someone, but it’s rather colloquial. I used it on a friend from Philly and he thanked me for my kindness. Sigh….. My son once told a bully that he “had the vocabulary of a head of cabbage.” Before the bully could digest that, Son simply walked away and was never bothered again. Language can be like a scythe when used effectively.

So put some effort into using the vastness of the English language. Heck, just a little effort is all you need. Instead of calling someone a douche bag, call them a colostomy bag. Think about THAT for a moment, and appreciate the beauty of how devastating an insult that is 😉