Happy weekend campers.
This post has nothing to do with anything except to indulge my own amusement on the endless subject of wordplay.
I think this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfwkArpvU is fantastic... if you havent watched it (only a few minutes) you ought to right now!
It was made by talented folk at NPR and their avant garde partners Radiolab. Watch it twice to dissect how brilliantly it was created.
Then for your Sunday amusement... I am sharing this list of words taken from Shakespearean drama... there is a caveat! You may not practice using this list on any telephone call to your parents or in description of either Sally Ann or me.
To create a Shakespearean insult... (grab a dictionary!)
Combine one word from each of the three columns below,
prefaced with "Thou":
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
artless base-court apple-john
bawdy bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering beef-witted barnacle
bootless beetle-headed bladder
churlish boil-brained boar-pig
cockered clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted clay-brained bum-bailey
craven common-kissing canker-blossom
currish crook-pated clack-dish
dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning doghearted codpiece
errant dread-bolted death-token
fawning earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied folly-fallen giglet
impertinent fool-born gudgeon
infectious full-gorged haggard
jarring guts-griping harpy
loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled hell-hated joithead
mewling idle-headed lewdster
paunchy ill-breeding lout
pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie
puking knotty-pated malt-worm
puny milk-livered mammet
qualling motley-minded measle
rank onion-eyed minnow
reeky plume-plucked miscreant
roguish pottle-deep moldwarp
ruttish pox-marked mumble-news
saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook
spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg
spongy rude-growing pignut
surly rump-fed puttock
tottering shard-borne pumpion
unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane
vain spur-galled scut
venomed swag-bellied skainsmate
villainous tardy-gaited strumpet
warped tickle-brained varlot
wayward toad-spotted vassal
weedy unchin-snouted whey-face
yeasty weather-bitten wagtail
Have a great Sunday everyone.
Peter
This made my night. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite so far is "Thou poisonous bunch-back’d toad" from Richard III :)
ReplyDeleteWe were given a similar insult sheet in 8th grade lit, and my friends and I went around calling each other "thou churlish milk-livered cankerblossom" for weeks!
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