Name Calling

[BJ Swabb]

Hello yall! So I am having brain farts on naming calling. See I have many characters that like to make fun of one another or call each other names, and I am running out of names or insults to call them. I am dealing with minotaur, satyrs, centaurs, and elves at the moment. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[JBCrowson]

Think about your favorite real world insults. Why do they work. There will be cultural, personal, humor related reasons. Think about is the name calling meant to offend / mock / be a pet name / play on the person's real names. Then translate those factors into your story world.

 

[JBCrowson]

Rhyming and alliteration are good for mocking type names.

 

[JBCrowson]

Rhyming and alliteration are good for mocking type names. When an Australian PM touched The Queen on a state visit, a UK tabloid came up with Lizard of Oz. Mango Mussolini, Quisling Quasimodo from Queensland, are others that stuck with me from political reportage.

 

[Penpilot]

IMHO the best insults involve context. If you want more insults, you have to create context and draw upon it.

If I were to say, "Have another friggen plumb," to pretty much everyone that would mean absolutely nothing. But to one of my friends, it'd garner at least an F-you back at me.

As your characters go through your story, they create and encounter context, draw upon it, and you'll have plenty to work with.

 

[BearBear]

Making light of body parts, alluding to parental deficiencies and lineage, insulting intelligence, bigotry in general.

 

[The Dark One]

As suggested by JBCrowson, alliteration is the gift that keeps on giving for mild insults, presuming your book is of the G/PGR level rating.

The expert of course was Dr Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. I loved his debates with the robot (and his insults always came in threes and increased in syllables as his temper rose):

"You contemptible clod! You mechanical misfit! You bubble-headed booby!"

My books tend to be R rated so I can use whatever f#@&ing insults I want.

 

[Mad Swede]

Writing this as someone fluent in several lnguages. Write your insults as you would in your own native language (English presumably), don't try to emulate or translate insults from another language. The reason I write that is because insults ans swearwords are very specific to a given language and culture, so translations don't work - you have to interpret and use the approximate equivalent in the language you are going to write in.

 

[JBCrowson]

Writing this as someone fluent in several lnguages. Write your insults as you would in your own native language (English presumably), don't try to emulate or translate insults from another language. The reason I write that is because insults ans swearwords are very specific to a given language and culture, so translations don't work - you have to interpret and use the approximate equivalent in the language you are going to write in.

Yes, calling someone a Richard Edward only works where Richard gets shortened to Dick.

 

[Rexenm]

Imagine you have another self. Then explain idioms. You are a danger to yourself, you like to eat pie. Maybe a cold shower would do you good. The reason I think this, is there is always a shadow, maybe realising this will expose gems. Anyway, there is an art to the insult, it isn’t just as easy as striking a person.

 

[pmmg]

Maybe you are using too much name calling if you are running out of terms.

Probably not good in writing, but IRL, calling someone the same thing repeatedly is probably more effective to get at them.

 

[Finchbearer]

Be interesting to know why your characters are insulting each other so much, and what the current insults are. It may be that you’re using too many, but maybe you want to use lots and it’s your choice.

Either way, context is everything. Some fantasy novels that I have recently read have a polytheist belief system, so they might say ‘Gods’ as way to curse. Or if someone has written their story in an English setting, an insult that gives the reader a sense of place might be ‘plonker’ or ‘numpty’.

 

[pmmg]

I don't know what a numpty is, but it does sound not nice.

 

[JBCrowson]

I don't know what a numpty is, but it does sound not nice.

A person who does dumb things they ought to have known would end badly, it's actually quite mild.

 

[Finchbearer]

I don't know what a numpty is, but it does sound not nice.

It’s a tame insult to be fair, almost like a term of endearment, which drives my point home about context.

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, I would find frequent name-calling tedious. If there's a lot of it and there's obvious invention going on, it would sound like an author trying to be clever rather than a character trying to insult.

Maybe look beyond name-calling. A kick in the pants or poke in the eye can serve. So can spitting or doing whatever it is a centaur might do. But, as others have said, why is there such a need for frequent insulting?

 

[pmmg]

It’s a tame insult to be fair, almost like a term of endearment, which drives my point home about context.

Okay, then we can still be friends

 

[BJ Swabb]

It's not so much of insulting as far as hating, but of loathing. I don't have that much really, just running out of actual sly comments towards the certain species. See the creatures that travel together are not fond of the other races. Minotaurs, satyrs, centaurs, and even talking animals (currently a ferret) don't really see eye to eye, and thinks one is better than the other. I am planning for my protagonist to bring them together as friends rather than just members of a fellowship to help Damien out. But of course you are going to get the tiny insult from another race, or a glare or whatever, I just need some ideas as far as what a centaur would call a minotaur, or a minotaur would call a satyr and so on, so I can have some what of an idea of how to play with them. I do appreciate all the feedback, it does help a little.

 

[Rexenm]

Redwall was a big help for me, Brian had plenty of things to say, as to what to call creatures, and the divide between good and evil - but my aboriginal mate always seemed to be on the other side, and that was dominant, and I also wondered where the magic went after the first book.

 

[BJ Swabb]

As suggested by JBCrowson, alliteration is the gift that keeps on giving for mild insults, presuming your book is of the G/PGR level rating.

The expert of course was Dr Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. I loved his debates with the robot (and his insults always came in threes and increased in syllables as his temper rose):

"You contemptible clod! You mechanical misfit! You bubble-headed booby!"

My books tend to be R rated so I can use whatever f#@&ing insults I want.

Unfortunately to me cussing seems like the easy way of getting around things. Though I do use a little cussing in my series, I don't turn to it cause I feel it is overused, and there are better ways of writing then saying F this and You B**ch, and such. I could easily go that route, but I feel cussing isn't always the answer.

Also my book isn't G/PGR rated it is confusing of what rating it would be, but it's definately not for children due to alot that happenes with in the series itself. There are a lot of disturbing and unsettling things that happen in which children should not read, Thought the first volume doesn't seem that way, as you get deeper in the series it gets real dark and disturbing not only to the young but to an everyday adult as well.