A multiple-word insult where the words are arranged in alphabetical order. As lexicographer Peter Bowler, author of The Superior Person’s Book of Words, notes, “Words are not only tools, they are weapons.” Bowler suggests this exquisite example: “‘You are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte.” Translated from highbrow English to regular English, the insult reads like this: “‘You are an impotent, conceited, obscene, hairy-buttocked, brainless, wicked, toadying, goatish, indecent, stable-smelling, hunchbacked, thick-lipped, stinking, turnip-shaped, feeble-minded, pimply, trashy, repellant, smarmy, foul-mouthed, greasy, gluttonous, loathsome, wooden-headed, whining, extremely low form of animal life.” Most likely the recipient of such an insult will be challenged to come up with a respectable comeback.
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For further reading: The Superior Person’s Book of Words by Peter Bowler, Godine Press (1982)
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