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Let Shakespeare Help You Hurl Insults Today

Mark the 448th anniversary of the Bard's baptism (and possibly his birthday) by hurling his famous words at your enemies.

English-speakers around the world owe a debt of gratitude to William Shakespeare: his clever and crafty prose has been a model of wit for more than four centuries. School children may try to duck the lessons on "Romeo and Juliet," but many of his phrases live on.

And as today marks the anniversary of the first record of young Willie Shakespeare—he was baptised on April 26, 1564, although scholars aren't certain of the exact date of his birth—we thought it appropriate to highlight some of William's less...recited quotations: his insults.

Shakespeare was truly a genius with a phrase, including the insult—perhaps only Winston Churchill stands alongside him in this department—but here are a few choice phrases to add to your memory, whenever you're at a loss for a good insult.

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The phrases are courtesy of The Shakepearean Insulter, which will provide you with hours of amusement being insulted by exquisite Shakepearean phrases (which we recommend imagining Patrick Stewart speaking).

Our favorites:

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"Thou art a very ragged Wart."—from "Henry IV." Ouch! Being compared to a wart is bad enough, let alone a ragged one.

"Idol of idiot-worshippers!"—from "Troilus and Cressida." This one is sure to be a popular phrase during the upcoming political season...

"Thou saucy idle-headed hedge-pig!" Take that!

"Your face is as a book, where men may read strange matters."—"MacBeth." 

"Thou rank clay-brained hedge-pig!"—"Henry IV."

And again from Henry IV, "[Thou] leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch!" Pretty much covers it all! 

students in Lauren Gottlieb's ninth-grade English class studied Shakespeare's gift with insults this week, too. She offered one of her favorites: "Yeasty rabbit-sucker."

WHRHS teacher Michael Porter said his favorite one-liner is from "MacBeth": "Thou art the best of the cutthroats."  

He also shared a fun "Shakespearean 'Conversation'" with insulting lines taken from various plays, available on the PBS website:

A:   Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat.
B:   Let's meet as little as we can.
A:   More of your conversation would infect my brain.
B:   Away!  Thou art poison to my blood.
A: Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene
greasy tallow-catch.
B:    Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
A:   Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.
B:    Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition!
A:   Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born to signify thou came to bite the world.
B:    Your heart is crammed with arrogancy, spleen and pride.
A:   Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood
B:   There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell as thou shall be.
A:    Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! You were born to do me shame.
B:   Come, you are a tedious fool.
A:  Beg that thou may have leave to hang thyself.
B:   Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; for I am sick when I do look on thee.
A:    Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
B:   Go thou and fill another room in hell.
A:    Heaven truly knows that thou are as false as hell.
B:    Thou lump of foul deformity.
A:   Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death.
B:    Away, you three-inch fool.
A:  Hang cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker.
B:    Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
A:   Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you.
B:    Go rot!

Didn't find one to your liking? Why not make up your own: use the handy "Shakespeare Insult Kit" to craft your own...you churlish, folly-fallen pumpion! 


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