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Big Book of Being Rude
With more than 7,000 zingers, the right crushing retort is always at hand! No more thinking of an apt reply after it's too just store up a collection of choice rejoinders from over 1,000 ways to call somebody a fool and 600 ways to say someone's acting stupid. Pick from hundreds of little-known terms for know-it-alls, egotists, flatterers, and nags. Really want to hit below the belt? Try a politically incorrect insult that zaps somebody for being too fat or thin, too young or old, or too socially unacceptable, sexually inept, or spiritually impoverished. So from now on, the weird, fussy, boring, loathsome and intolerable, or merely irritating had better watch out!
- GenresHumorNonfictionReference
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Jonathon Green
91 books26 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
I am a lexicographer, that is a dictionary maker, specialising in slang, about which I have been compiling dictionaries, writing and broadcasting since 1984. I have also written a history of lexicography. After working on my university newspaper I joined the London ‘underground press’ in 1969, working for most of the then available titles, such as Friends, IT and Oz. I have been publishing books since the mid-1970s, spending the next decade putting together a number of dictionaries of quotations, before I moved into what remains my primary interest, slang. I have also published three oral histories: one on the hippie Sixties, one on first generation immigrants to the UK and one on the sexual revolution and its development. Among other non-slang titles have been three dictionaries of occupational jargon, a narrative history of the Sixties, a book on cannabis, and an encyclopedia of censorship. As a freelancer I have broadcast regularly on the radio, made appearances on TV, including a 30-minute study of slang in 1996, and and written columns both for academic journals and for the Erotic Review.
My slang work has reached its climax, but I trust not its end, with the publication in 2010 of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a three volume, 6,200-page dictionary ‘on historical principles’ offering some 110,000 words and phrases, backed up by around 410,000 citations or usage examples. The book covers all anglophone countries and its timeline stretches from around 1500 up to the present day. For those who prefer something less academic, I published the Chambers Slang Dictionary, a single volume book, in 2008. Given that I am in no doubt that the future of reference publishing lies in digital form, it is my intention to place both these books on line in the near future.
I am a lexicographer, that is a dictionary maker, specialising in slang, about which I have been compiling dictionaries, writing and broadcasting since 1984. I have also written a history of lexicography. After working on my university newspaper I joined the London ‘underground press’ in 1969, working for most of the then available titles, such as Friends, IT and Oz. I have been publishing books since the mid-1970s, spending the next decade putting together a number of dictionaries of quotations, before I moved into what remains my primary interest, slang. I have also published three oral histories: one on the hippie Sixties, one on first generation immigrants to the UK and one on the sexual revolution and its development. Among other non-slang titles have been three dictionaries of occupational jargon, a narrative history of the Sixties, a book on cannabis, and an encyclopedia of censorship. As a freelancer I have broadcast regularly on the radio, made appearances on TV, including a 30-minute study of slang in 1996, and and written columns both for academic journals and for the Erotic Review.
My slang work has reached its climax, but I trust not its end, with the publication in 2010 of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a three volume, 6,200-page dictionary ‘on historical principles’ offering some 110,000 words and phrases, backed up by around 410,000 citations or usage examples. The book covers all anglophone countries and its timeline stretches from around 1500 up to the present day. For those who prefer something less academic, I published the Chambers Slang Dictionary, a single volume book, in 2008. Given that I am in no doubt that the future of reference publishing lies in digital form, it is my intention to place both these books on line in the near future.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 22, 2024
There are some gems hidden in here but much of what pass for "insults" here are just various forms of discrimination: ageism, classism, homophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, you name it. A more honest title would leave out the subtitle and the table of contents could stand to be re-organized as follows: Insults, Slurs, Epithets, etc. It's frankly shocking that this was printed as-is as recently as 2000. Then again, it was published in London...
March 8, 2015
[Not safe for work]
My favorite insult from this book: "Go to hell and help your mother make bitch pie!"
A few of these made me laugh out loud:
* In the 19th century, someone who worried excessively was a fret-kidney.
* "A woman who dissects her acquaintances over tea and muffins" was a muffin-walloper. In African-American slang of the 1940s, a gossipy woman was a gatemouth.
* In 1980s college slang, a misfit was a penis wrinkle.
* In 1940s African-American slang, a thin woman was a straight-up six o'clock girl.
* In 1970s U.S. college-campus slang, a woman who looks attractive by night but not in daylight is a night fighter.
* In the 1600s, a drunkard was an afternoon man or a fuddlecap.
* To 1950s Australians, the type of person who cannot drink without becoming obstreperously drunk was a one-pot screamer.
* In Glasgow, Scotland, in the late 1800s, a child who could eat its weight in groceries was a breadsnapper.
* A synonym for "rich person" in the late 1800s was a turkey-buyer.
* To African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s, a police officer in a patrol vehicle was the man who rides the screaming gasser and one on foot was the man with the headache stick. But to gay people in the 1980s, a cop was our friend with the talking brooch.
* A teacher is an alphabet slinger or a chalk-and-talker.
My favorite insult from this book: "Go to hell and help your mother make bitch pie!"
A few of these made me laugh out loud:
* In the 19th century, someone who worried excessively was a fret-kidney.
* "A woman who dissects her acquaintances over tea and muffins" was a muffin-walloper. In African-American slang of the 1940s, a gossipy woman was a gatemouth.
* In 1980s college slang, a misfit was a penis wrinkle.
* In 1940s African-American slang, a thin woman was a straight-up six o'clock girl.
* In 1970s U.S. college-campus slang, a woman who looks attractive by night but not in daylight is a night fighter.
* In the 1600s, a drunkard was an afternoon man or a fuddlecap.
* To 1950s Australians, the type of person who cannot drink without becoming obstreperously drunk was a one-pot screamer.
* In Glasgow, Scotland, in the late 1800s, a child who could eat its weight in groceries was a breadsnapper.
* A synonym for "rich person" in the late 1800s was a turkey-buyer.
* To African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s, a police officer in a patrol vehicle was the man who rides the screaming gasser and one on foot was the man with the headache stick. But to gay people in the 1980s, a cop was our friend with the talking brooch.
* A teacher is an alphabet slinger or a chalk-and-talker.
July 7, 2015
I don't mind general insults, and some can be fun. I draw the line at listing names about personal appearance, disability and race. Not my cup of tea, but it is a well organized list with drawings to illustrate.
June 23, 2008
Really fun book to flip through when you need to let off steam.
Beware, after you read a few pages you will be laughing so hard, and thinking of a bunch people you could use the slang on.
Beware, after you read a few pages you will be laughing so hard, and thinking of a bunch people you could use the slang on.
August 1, 2012
This was definitely my personality. In fact, it was a gift!
December 30, 2012
it's 'bog-book'..in other words to be read while on the 'john' _
August 13, 2016
Need a good laugh? This book covers it all!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews