Classy (?) insults

[pigface]

G B Shaw: I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend—if you have one.

Churchill: Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second—if there is one.

 

[LeicsDom]

The always sublime Monty Python
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of ELDERBERRIES!!”

And, completely unrelated "When you were born the wrong bit went in the bucket"

 

[rareboy]

The better part of him ran down his father's leg when he pulled out.

 

[Norri]

Your charms are elusive.

 

[LeicsDom]

And of course the classic "if brains were gunpowder you couldn't even blow your nose"

 

[Araucaria]

^Or the variation my ex used: If their brains were dynamite, you wouldn't have enough to blow a rat's ass to hell.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I think you mean the Graham Sutherland portrait. Churchill may not have liked it, but I doubt that it was ever intended as any form of insult. I don't see it as "insultingly slovenly".

Yes, that is the one. Apparently, not only did Churchill and his wife despise it, but his grandson remembered it clearly and related the episode in the same context I remember the documentary treating it. That documentary had included (unrelated) interviews with Lady Soames.

This clip includes Churchill's reaction as well as his grandson's comments. There was a remark in there about it being commissioned by his political rival, implying it was an intended jab.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The Guardian featured an article when a study for the portrait appeared from private hands. The quotes below reveal how it came about and why Churchill resented it:

At their first meeting, Churchill asked Sutherland: “How are you going to paint me? As a cherub or as the bulldog?” Churchill was nicknamed the bulldog for his physical appearance and his temperament. Sutherland replied by saying it depended what image Churchill presented, later remarking that the prime minister had consistently shown himself as a bulldog.

The two men became friends, although Sutherland repeatedly resisted Churchill’s requests to view his work-in-progress. On seeing the finished portrait, Churchill described it to his personal doctor as “filthy and malignant”. He believed it was part of a conspiracy to bring him down, and threatened not to attend the unveiling ceremony.

The historian Simon Schama said in 2015: “The painting is an extraordinary homage to Churchill. What Sutherland saw in front of him was a magnificent ruin … Churchill said it made him look half-witted. It doesn’t. It is a man of years.”

Study for portrait Winston Churchill disliked goes on show at his old home

Painting by Graham Sutherland is being displayed at Blenheim Palace before being auctioned in June

www.theguardian.com

 

[Peloso]

 

[Latimer]

A moderately rich couple for whom I designed a 7,000 s.f. house (modest for the neighborhood) a few years ago recently gave a party during which one of the much richer guests, a billionaire who lives in a 20,000 s.f. house, complemented their house saying that it had "storybook charm". Although the husband reported this to me with some delight,
I found it a noteworthy and amusing example of damning with faint praise.

"Damn with faint praise" was first used by Alexander Pope in 1734

 

[NotHardUp1]

A moderately rich couple for whom I designed a 7,000 s.f. house (modest for the neighborhood) a few years ago recently gave a party during which one of the much richer guests, a billionaire who lives in a 20,000 s.f. house, complemented their house saying that it had "storybook charm". Although the husband reported this to me with some delight,
I found it a noteworthy and amusing example of damning with faint praise.

"Damn with faint praise" was first used by Alexander Pope in 1734

Sarcasm and facetiousness do somehow get the burnishing of being "classy."

They don't seem particularly admirable when merely used to say mean things in private settings, unless in response to some bullying, for example. The billionaire's insult seems the very epitome of bad manners, to be invited to a home and to then repay the favor by insult, even more so from a perch of such great privilege. When wit is combined with malice, it just seems like apes dressed up in finery.

However, in public discourse, where ideas are being promoted and thrown against one another, using wit to drive a point, even an ad hominem attack, seem quite appropriate, as the effect is to add humor to the exchange, to perhaps make the conflict less dire, and to add context to the debate.

An example might be, "The left is so busy spotlighting the plight of transgendered individuals that it serves the right's goal of attempting to make sure no one is allowed to forget the former identities of those so desperately trying to move on to their new ones."

 

[luckynumbah7]

You are a sad, strange little man and you have my pity.

 

[Latimer]

Sarcasm and facetiousness do somehow get the burnishing of being "classy."

They don't seem particularly admirable when merely used to say mean things in private settings, unless in response to some bullying, for example. The billionaire's insult seems the very epitome of bad manners, to be invited to a home and to then repay the favor by insult, even more so from a perch of such great privilege.

I doubt he meant it as an insult, nor do I think he meant to damn with faint praise. Let's say it was unintentional damning with faint praise, by a person who is somewhat architecturally clueless--particularly because "Storybook" refers to a style popular in the US in the twenties and thirties--cute Hansel and Gretel cottages, diminutive Cotswold cottages, etc. Carmel, California is filled with them. The house I designed is not diminutive and hardly cute: Monterey-style of the Yankee variety (as opposed to Monterey-style of the Spanish variety), classically detailed and much admired. I was amused rather than insulted. The billionaire's house--which I know--was designed by his decorator, who is a superb decorator but not equally talented as an architect.

 

[rareboy]

When I was interning at a company in University, I grew very close to one of the partner's family ...and remember his wife telling me that at the first dinner she served to the company president's wife, the dreadful woman 'complimented' her on the lovely 'big, peasant beets' she served.

We howled over this.

The same horrid woman once told us the the 'problem with Canadians is that "whenever you said 'Please drop in', they do."

And my partner (from old New England family) responded that the problem with Americans is that they 'always were inviting people to visit but never mean it'