How to Coin Great Insults

     

The Secret Art of Writing Insults

There are circumstances when “schmuck” and “cowhide” sound short and weak.

You wish you knew a strong and original insult that would shut up the listener. Dictionaries do not treat the subject seriously, as if they were written by people who never drive, never miss a train, never wait at the post-office, or never try to install the last version of some software.
By the way, talking about such people arouses the need for definitive insults.

As any other part of the language, insults obey some specific laws. Study the laws, apply them, and an infinite supply of coinages will be at your disposal.

From a technical point of view, a good insult needs two nouns either linked by “of” or the first one acting as a qualifying adjective for the second. (There are other means -linguistics is a rich and astonishing science- but not all of them are accessible to beginners.)
You may have to start the phrase with “son of”, or better with “bastard of”. It is not always required, or possible, but it is a good way to arrest your opponent's attention. Since you are going to do a performance, round up an audience.

As you may guess, not just any noun can do the trick. “Pencil of floor” sounds rather innocent and “Summer day” will not insult anyone. For a good coinage, you must work that way:
1 - List the nouns that belong to the vocabulary of the body (prefer lower parts), the trash, the dirtiness, the medicine, etc.
Do not list slang words: the novelty would be likely to fail.
2 – Divide the list into two equal lists.
3 – Join together: one word of the first list with one word of the second one.

That's all! You are ready to shout: “foulness of litter bin” or “pimple residue”.
It is time for your character to sit behind the wheel and go make new friends.

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