Insult With Class
by Miki Saxon
Do you like to impress people? Do you want to be seen as intelligent; a person who is going somewhere?
Then here’s a secret few people think about.
Successful people are usually great communicators and the hallmark of great communications is clarity of thought. What people don’t think about is that clarity applies to all communications—including insults.
Practice clarity in all your communications and if it’s necessary to insult someone, and at times it is—or at least it feels that way—your insults should be offered with the same clarity and a whole lot of class.
The need for clarity is obvious—you want the person you’re insulting, and anyone else who is cognizant of it, to not only know your opinion, but to be impressed with your elegance.
Any idiot can say, “She’s dumb” or “he’s a *%$# jerk,” but those insults have no real meaning.
In fact, the minute you resort to expletives to describe a person or action you prove yourself to be a person of small intellect and smaller vocabulary.
Clarity is the key—using the fewest words, while allowing no question as to meaning or intent, as is shown by these three historic figures.
Clarence Darrow: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
Abraham Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I know.”
Oscar Wilde: “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
Additionally, when you’re insulted, especially by someone with clarity and class, you want to respond in kind as was done here.
George Bernard Shaw sent a note to Winston Churchill saying, “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.”
To which Churchill responded, “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”
No question as to what either thought of the other.
Mark Twain was a master of perfectly barbed clarity, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
And before you think that the art or the clear and classy insult is a thing of the past, take a look at three modern examples,
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” –Billy Wilder
“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” –Robert Redford
And I absolutely love this one,
“He had delusions of adequacy.” –Walter Kerr
Practice with a friend, it’s fun and you will acquire a skill that sets you apart.
Image credit: Collin Anderson on flickr
October 27th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Oh what I would give to have this skill! Unfortunately I am not good at thinking ‘on my feet’ so I would think of the proper insult about 4 hours after the fact!
June 12th, 2012 at 1:16 am
[…] few years ago I wrote about the value of learning to insult with class, instead of […]
March 26th, 2014 at 1:15 am
[…] Often, the people asking are looking for approaches that echo the classy insults post from 2009. […]