Shakespeare's insults were a bit more polished than modern-day verbal floggings...

Today’s insults tend to be of one or two syllables and they tend to come out as snorts or gasps, but lack the fluency and grace of the magestic insults William Shakespeare conjured up, for example in this extract from "King Lear:"

"You are a knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-hound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in a way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongret bitch: one whom I qill beat into clamorous whining if thou deni’st the least syllable of thy addition." (2.213-23.)

On second thought, an insult is an insult, so why talk about the grace or fluency of the phrase you are bombarded with? What counts is the intention...and you don’t even have to understand the words to realize that you are being insulted. Still, it might be useful to introduce a bit more variety and colour into our insults. Better yet: put the insults into a box, lock it, and throw away the key! Well, a good old-fashioned insult does come in handy at time, to get across your feeling with no ambiguity! The problem is that the person you insult will certainly return your verbal whipping by upping the ante...