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    Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
    Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
    Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

    By John Barber

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    Don’t you wish you could always find the right words at just the right time to answer anyone who has upset you? You will find that reply in this book. It has over 750 insults from some of the wittiest, cleverest and smartest writers that have proved that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

    This book of insults has been collected from the well-known to the hardly ever heard of; from the famous to the anonymous, from newspapers and TV to long forgotten and folded magazines.

    Of course Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde appear but so does Raquel Welch and Frank Zappa along with Frank Warren (boxing promoter) and Violet Carson (soap actress). Naturally Queen Victoria was not amused but you might be by this huge collection that has ‘the style of being knocked up on a condemned typewriter in a garden shed in Wapping’. (FOUL Magazine – long since folded).

    Insults have been creamed from books of quotations, the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and others such as this from a newspaper story quoting an anonymous British Rail engineer who remarked: ‘Basically, they’re crap’.

    A book to dip into, browse at random or use as a study aid before an important meeting. You will not be disappointed. Don’t be like Groucho Marx: ‘From the moment I picked up your book till the moment I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it.’

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Barber
    Release dateJun 27, 2011
    ISBN9781466050617
    Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
    Author

    John Barber

    John Barber was born in London at the height of the UK Post War baby boom. The Education Act of 1944 saw great changes in the way the nation was taught; the main one being that all children stayed at school until the age of 15 (later increased to 16). For the first time working class children were able to reach higher levels of academic study and the opportunity to gain further educational qualifications at University.This explosion in education brought forth a new aspirational middle class; others remained true to their working class roots. The author belongs somewhere between the two. Many of the author’s main characters have their genesis in this educational revolution. Their dialogue though idiosyncratic can normally be understood but like all working class speech it is liberally sprinkled with strange boyhood phrases and a passing nod to cockney rhyming slang.John Barber’s novels are set in fictional English towns where sexual intrigue and political in-fighting is rife beneath a pleasant, small town veneer of respectability.They fall within the cozy, traditional British detective sections of mystery fiction.He has been writing professionally since 1996 when he began to contribute articles to magazines on social and local history. His first published book in 2002 was a non-fiction work entitled The Camden Town Murder which investigated a famous murder mystery of 1907 and names the killer. This is still available in softback and as an ebook, although not available from SmashwordsJohn Barber had careers in Advertising, International Banking and the Wine Industry before becoming Town Centre Manager in his home town of Hertford. He is now retired and lives with his wife and two cats on an island in the middle of Hertford and spends his time between local community projects and writing further novels.

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      Book preview

      Insults - John Barber

      Insults – Old, new, borrowed, blue

      By John Barber

      Copyright 2011 John Barber

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Insults – Old, new, borrowed, blue

      In a ground-breaking case in an English court Ms Sarah Chernaik was acquitted of the charge of threatening behaviour after shouting ‘You silly cow' at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

      At various times we have all hurled insults like this at people against whom we bear a grudge. Usually the insult is accompanied by the liberal use of four letter words. Of course a couple of days later, or even minutes afterwards we think of just the right words or phrase we would liked to had used, had they entered our mind at the time.

      Well, here they all are. Some of these will make you smile, laugh, perhaps cringe; all of them (well nearly all of them) are repeatable in company. Here you will find words of wisdom spoken or written by some of the best literary geniuses to have employed the English language. Of course, there are also examples of people who would have done better keeping their thoughts to themselves, not being blessed with perfect delivery.

      One of the most prolific contributors is Anon. Some of the anonymous contributions are phrases that have been bandied about for hundreds of years; others I have found in newspapers, letters pages and long since dead magazines.

      There is a strong contribution from the world of sport. Not surprisingly sportsmen are always in the news and often eager to give vent to their frustration with competitors, officials and the game itself. Thanks to the popularity of newspapers, TV and radio their words have been recorded for posterity.

      Where possible and especially for non-UK readers I have given a brief background but not so for some poor souls who find themselves quoted here but I forgot to take note of who, why or what they were doing at the time to gain my attention. To them I apologise.

      To the reader, I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I did in putting it together. It is intended more as a dip in where you like rather than to be read cover to cover, so all the quotes are listed alphabetically by author.

      Gladly we desire to make other men perfect but we will not amend our own faults.

      Thomas a Kempis, German Ascetical writer

      The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

      Dean Acheson, US politician

      The EU pontificates on the width of theatre seats while Mozambique drowns.

      Susan Adams

      The man you love to hate.

      Advert for Erich von Stroheim

      He can summon up all the expressions there are except the tragic ones; the lack of which in a tragic actor must be a shortcoming.

      James Agate, UK Drama critic and novelist

      The luckiest man was Adam. He had no mother-in-law.

      Sholom Aleichim

      Everybody's negotiable.

      Muhammed Ali

      A committee is a group of men who individually do nothing but as a group decide nothing can be done.

      Fred Allen, US Humourist

      I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there.

      Fred Allen

      California is a great place — if you happen to be an orange.

      Fred Allen

      To make someone regal who is only 5' 4"

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