When insults had class

These glorious insults are from an era before the English language became boiled down to 4-letter words.

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow.

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas.

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain.

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde.

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -Stephen Bishop.

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright.

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -Irvin S. Cobb.

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." -Samuel Johnson.

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating.

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand.

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker.

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain.

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West.

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde.

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912).

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder.

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." – Groucho


From The Nutters Cub, New Zealand.

Watch out for those zeugmas

When used intentionally a zeugma may be witty and clever. When used unintentionally the reader may also fall out of her chair laughing. But at the author, not at the story.

A zeugma joins two parts of a sentence together with a single verb or noun that may only refer to one of them (that’s an oops!) or may refer to both of them in a different way. (That’s when it may be very clever, or then again it may still be an oops).

A famous example of a zeugma from Star Trek: The Next Generation: “You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit.” In this sentence, the word “execute” applies to both laws and citizens, and as a result, has a shocking effect.

“On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.” (Wordoftheday.com)

“She looked at the object with suspicion and a magnifying glass.” (Charles Dickens)

When Zeugma Goes Wrong

“Sitting by the fence, the dog barked at the cat” is an example of when zeugma goes wrong. If you wrote that sentence, you may think that you are making it clear that both the dog and the cat are sitting by the fence. However, you have actually created a dangling modifier. Due to the placement of the word “sitting,” it is unclear as to whether the dog, the cat or both of the animals are sitting near the fence.

Another example of such a construction is as follows: “Walking by the tree, the child waved to her friend.” Again, who is walking by the tree? One child or both of the children?

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.