Find yourself tempted to say that effin word too often? Modern english is rather unimaginative when it comes to expletives, contenting itself with a paucity of four letter equivalents for the range of human distress.
Elizabethans took a delight with language, weaving together terms to form stinging phrases of wit. As a faire worker, these equivalents are not only fun, but don't make parents with children glare at you. You could say fie-(fye) or you could swear by God's teeth or wounds. As a tradesman, you might swear by your hammer or tongs, or any other object of untarnished purity. (Good Elizabethans would not, as a rule, swear by Odin's beard or similar heresy.) Should that eff-word be particularly required, the learned Elizabethan would employ the common verb swive. Humorous modern effects result from the application of terms such as pig farker, which of course means pig farmer and is not an insult at all.
To create your own curses, memorize some choice terms from the list below, two adjectives and a noun minimum per curse please.
Some samples:
Thou fawning tardy-gaited baggage... Thou venomed, fen-sucked mammet... Thou fobbing, weather-bitten, lewdster... Thou churlish, reeling-ripe, apple-john... Thou saucy, pox-marked, coxcomb...
Combine one word from each of the columns below prefaced with "Thou"...
Column 1 |
Column 2 |
Column 3 |
artless
bawdy
beslubbering
bootless
churlish
cockered
clouted
craven
currish
dankish
dissembling
droning
errant
fawning
fobbing
froward
frothy
gleeking
goatish
gorbellied
impertinent
infectious
jarring
loggerheaded
lumpish
mammering
mangled
mewling
paunchy
pribbling
puking
puny
quailing
rank
reeky
roguish
ruttish
saucy
spleeny
spongy
surly
tottering
unmuzzled
vain
venomed
villainous
warped
wayward
weedy
yeasty
|
base-court
bat-fowling
beef-witted
beetle-headed
boil-brained
clapper-clawed
clay-brained
common-kissing
crook-pated
dismal-dreaming
dizzy-eyed
doghearted
dread-bolted
earth-vexing
elf-skinned
fat-kidneyed
fen-sucked
flap-mouthed
fly-bitten
folly-fallen
fool-born
full-gorged
guts-griping
half-faced
hasty-witted
hedge-born
hell-hated
idle-headed
ill-breeding
ill-nurtured
knotty-pated
milk-livered
motley-minded
onion-eyed
plume-plucked
pottle-deep
pox-marked
reeling-ripe
rough-hewn
rude-growing
rump-fed
shard-borne
sheep-biting
spur-galled
swag-bellied
tardy-gaited
tickle-brained
toad-spotted
urchin-snouted
weather-bitten
|
apple-johnbaggage
barnacle
bladder
boar-pig
bugbear
bum-bailey
canker-blossom
clack-dish
clotpole
coxcomb
codpiece
death-token
dewberry
flap-dragon
flax-wench
flirt-gill
foot-licker
fustilarian
giglet
gudgeon
haggard
harpy
hedge-pig
horn-beast
hugger-mugger
jolthead
lewdster
lout
maggot-pie
malt-worm
mammet
measle
minnow
miscreant
moldwarp
mumble-news
nut-hook
pigeon-egg
pignut
puttock
pumpion
ratsbane
scut
skainsmate
strumpet
varlet
vassal
whey-face
wagtail
|
