Insults: How Do I Detest Thee?

Quite a few reviews of The Innamorati mentioned with some glee and the occasional admiration the insults hurled back and forth between characters in the novel. Many of them are historical, taken from a variety of Renaissance story-telling traditions, some belong to the Commedia dell'Arte, and some I invented, simply because I found myself caught up in the spirit of colorful, scatological (sooo many ways to use shit), and wildly creative name-calling. I think in the Commedia and certainly in the Renaissance tales they were meant to illicit laughter -- and lots of it -- the cruder the better. Even today, Italy has a vibrant culture of insulting, in word and in gesture, and modern day grandmothers can shame obstreperous youth with a savage insult. So here is a list of some of them, mostly from research and and some invented (though I can't remember which ones)  that made it into the novel. 

 

Pox-faced shiteater

Pezzo di merda (piece of shit)

Cazzone cafone (peasant dickhead)

Piece of Spanish shit!

Italian sop

Paella-breath

Pasta-head

Crab louse, get off my tits

Pus-plague sore

Fuck off, you shitty bed-pissing hangman's knot

You slimy snot-nosed, prickless son of a bitch

Old nun's fart

Testa di merda (shit head)

Tool of another's lust

Drawbridge mouth that's always open

Stinking sardine

Bowel builder

Graveyard asparagus

Jibbering dildo

Plague-louse

Pig's spit

Pile of rotten straw

Brothel-bred northern-shithead

Syphilitic southern trash sired by a hundred fathers

Spawn of a jackass

Diaper-assed boy

Piss-pot

Son of a taxed woman (a prostitute)

Blood-sucking witch

Baby-smotherer

Shit-dressed

Wicked and libidinous wolf