In the past, unlike today, insults did not incorporate foul language or invective using four letter words. Instead insults exemplified the participants’ erudition, class, intelligence and wit. The insults between Winston Churchill and Lady Astor exhibited the former’s mastery of this art form. What is less known is Lady Astor’s equally acerbic tongue and repartee skills.
The word ‘insult’ comes from the Latin ‘saltas’ meaning a leap. Later ‘insult’ swapped meanings with ‘injury’ which meant ‘to swear and curse someone or vilify them.’ We have the expression ‘adding insult to injury’ which meant escalating things. Dr Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defines ‘insult’ as the act of jumping upon anything. Later the word came to mean an act or speech of insolence or contempt.
Although it is impolite to insult someone today, put-downs, invective and incivility have been hurled through the ages as a form of classic art. Even today politicians exchange insults lavishly in and out of Parliament. Insulting has once again become an art. From time immemorial men and women have relished the delight of verbal warfare. Sometimes we may not be using the language with precision and imagination as in the past. We hide our real thoughts behind fuzzy words. However, we secretly admire people who have the courage to say aloud what we ourselves dare only to think.
Paranavithana
One day, the celebrated archaeologist Paranavithana got off his vehicle and started walking towards the lecture hall carrying a bundle of books. Some of his erstwhile students volunteered to carry the heavy load for him. He rejected their offer saying, “If I can write these books, why can’t I carry them?” Knowing their teacher’s ways, the students did not take it as an insult.
Over the years, there have been many people who called a spade a spade. When the former Prime Minister S.W.R. D. Bandaranaike was assassinated by a man in yellow robes, Sri John Kotelawala is reported to have said that Bhikkus’ backs should be blackened with tar. His comment provoked the Maha Sangha and he lost the election.
You can insult a person or place even without using words. Former MP W. Dahanayake came to Parliament wearing an ‘amude’ (loin cloth) to protest against the spiralling cost of clothes. Although it was an insult to the august assembly, his behaviour evoked laughter. We come across many such instances in history. The ancient Roman poet Martial used insult copiously. Once he wrote: “I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and your limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not to figure myself with enumerating each of them, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether.” He was targeting a woman who had rejected him.
Antics of a comedian
Many authors, painters, and poets have been vilified in the past. Gioacchino Rossini wrote, “Wagner has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours.” Mark Twain described a painting by Turner as “a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes.” More recently, Al Capp covered the whole field of abstract art as “A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.” A local drama critic wrote, “I wasted two hours watching the antics of a comedian. I should have been run over by a speeding vehicle before I reached the theatre.”
Mark Twain could be sardonic at times. He delighted audiences with witty comments. Once he said, “Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congessman can. … Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it? … When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.”
Lord Macaulay was an essayist, historian, and statesman. He was also a non-stop talker. His foes and even friends hated to see him talking endlessly. One of his critics said, “His conversation was a procession of one.” Florence Nightingale went a step further and wrote, “He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.” Rev. Sydney Smith, a witty exponent of pithy phrases, said, “When I am on the pulpit, I have the pleasure of seeing my audience and approbation while they sleep.”
Vitriolic critic
Those familiar with English literature will recall Thomas Carlyle as a vitriolic critic. This is what he wrote about Charles Lamb: “Charles Lamb I sincerely believes to be in some considerable degree insane. A more pitiful, rickety, gasping, staggering, stammering tomfool I do not know.” Carlyle himself was the subject of many barbs. Samuel Butler wrote, “It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four.”
One day a budding writer sent his manuscript to a veteran writer for comment. His comment came after a few days. “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original; but the part that is original is not good.” The budding writer got the message accurately.
In the developed West most women are fighting for their rights. Some men resent it. Once a man wrote, “She never was really charming until she died.” Another man wrote, “God created Adam master and lord of all living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.” Benjamin Disraeli wrote, “I have always thought that every woman should marry and no man.” Despite the glass ceiling, women have achieved high posts in business establishments and government departments. However, we hear some caustic comments such as “There are no women composers, never have been, and possibly never will be.” G.K. Chesterton came out with a barb: “Twenty million young women rose to their feet with the cry ‘We will not be dictated to’, and promptly became stenographers.
Direct confrontations
Sometimes there have been direct confrontations between leading men and women. One day Lady Astor met Winston Churchill.
Lady Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I should flavour your coffee with poison.
Churchill: Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it.
On another day, Churchill met Bessie Braddock who was an MP.
Bessie: You’re drunk.
Churchill: Bessie, you’re ugly, and tomorrow morning I’ll be sober, but you’ll still be ugly.
John Randolph was a venomous Congressman. He called Edward Livingston “a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.” One day Randolph met Henry Clay on a narrow sidewalk.
Clay: I, sir, do not step aside for a scoundrel.
Randolph: On the other hand, I always do.
Politicians exchange barbs all the time, but they do them without malice. It is often said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Duncan Spaeth said, “The sun never sets on the British Empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark.” A Turkish proverb says, “An Englishman will burn his bed to catch a flea.” The celebrated British author Oscar Wilde said, “Of course, America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.” Not to be outdone, Bernard Shaw said, “The 100% American is 99% an idiot.” Even democracy has not been spared. A cynic has said, “Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses.”
Some people criticise everything under the sun. For such people, Alice Roosevelt Longworth had a pillow in her sitting room with an embroidered statement: ‘If you can’t say something good about somebody, sit right here beside me.”