‘Fie, Fie! You counterfeit, you puppet, you!’
 
Renaissance Dissing


 

 Reflecting Shakespeare’s more earth-bound “ill-dispersing” creativity, this exercise encourages the power of strong, descriptive language.
  
 Activity: Work in pairs or groups to design a favorite insult, then practice delivering it to the class. Discuss choice of words, meaning and impact, which combinations are the most humorous, imaginative, insulting, fun.
  
 Directions: Combineth one word from each columns below, add "Thou" to the beginning, and thus shalt thou have a perfect insult to fling at wretched fools.

 

Thou. . .

 

 

  column A   column B  column C
     

 

1. bawling  black-browed calamity 
2. blubbering cream-faced canker-blossom
3. churlish eye-offending cutpurse
4. distempered folly-fallen eggshell
5.  false green-sick fiddlestick
6. grizzled grim-looked fish-monger
7. heartless  hard-hearted foot-licker
8. homespun ill-beseeming hazel-nut
9. ignorant ill-shaped hedgehog
10. monstrous  life-weary hobgoblin
11. odious lily-livered logger-head
12. overweening muddy-mettled loon
13. peevish pale-hearted maggot-pie
14. pernicious periwig-pated malignancy
15. rascally pickle-herring minimus
16. rebellious pigeon-livered noise-maker
17. reeky proper-false rat-catcher
18. saucy reeling-ripe relic
19. scurvy rump-fed rudesby
20. shrewish shag-eared scoundrel
21. treacherous sour-eyed sheep-biter
22. villainous  tallow-faced toad
23. waggish tempest-tossed waterfly
24. wanton waspish-headed weasel
25. yeasty  whey-faced worm’s meat