Up & Coming Weekly

THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Insulting With Wit and Style by MARGARET DICKSON Like many Americans, I am distressed by the tone of political debate and social commentary in our country. The criticisms fl y with stinging words like “liar,” racial and ethnic slurs and four-letter words I will not put down on paper. They come from people who clearly missed out on many a mother’s heartfelt advice that we can all catch more fl ies with honey than with vinegar. The ugliness that permeates our national discourse does little to advance the causes of the speakers, and it refl ects on them as people with limited imaginations and even more limited vocabularies. That being said, today’s tone is not new. Newspapers dating from the days of our emerging nation made no pretense of objectivity. Readers of that era chose newspapers and other publications for their points of view, which were often strong and highly critical. It has been only in recent decades that objectivity came to be prized, even if it is often diffi cult if not impossible to locate. Our country is hardly unique in our ugly tone. The English press is famous for its dogged and sometimes vicious coverage of stories, particularly if they involve members of Parliament and other politicians, the royal family and celebrities. Reporting on what Prince Charles had to say about then secret sweetie Camilla’s trousers really was TMI — too much information. But we human beings are what we are, and we do get angry and we do dislike others to the point that we call each other names and insult each other. We do want to hurt each other’s feelings and/or reputations, and sometimes we go after each other with a vengeance. It is just that some of us are better at it than others. Some of us, in fact, are quite talented in the insult department, wonderful but insulting observations that cut to the bone and make the rest of us wish we had thought of them fi rst, even if we were too chicken or too polite to say them. The British seem especially gifted with witty and stylish insults, especially Sir Winston Churchill who had a long and well known running feud with the American born Lady Astor. Said she one day, “If you were my husband, I would give you poison.” Replied he, “If you were my wife, I would drink it.” Another famous exchange occurred after a long evening, when Lady Astor observed that Sir Winston was drunk. He replied in agreement and then disparaged the Lady’s physical appearance and noted, “In the morning, I will be sober.” Churchill certainly gave as good Wilde also observed this about someone he knew. “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was lethal with insults as well. When a member of Parliament came after him with this, “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease,” Disraeli blew him out of the water with this. “Sir, that depends on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.” Whoa! We Americans can get off a few good ones as well. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway were in the same generation of gifted American novelists but their styles were polar opposites — Faulkner long and complicated, Hemingway short and direct. Said Faulkner of his literary competition, “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” Moses Hadas, a classical scholar at Columbia University zinged this double entendre at a fellow writer. “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” American humorist Irvin S. Cobb lives up to his billing with this, “I have just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it is nothing trivial.” Groucho Marx, an American original, departed as he got. An exchange with playwright George Bernard Shaw went like this. “I am enclosing two tickets to the fi rst night of my new play; bring a friend…if you have one.” Churchill replied, “Cannot possibly attend the fi rst night, will attend the second…if there is one.” One of my favorite remarks, perhaps because I feel the same way about some folks comes from another Brit, the clever Oscar Wilde, who noted this about other people. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” after what he must have considered a less than satisfactory evening with this remark, “I have had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” I will close with the incomparable Mark Twain, a man whose observation that “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no power in this world,” can still send my sister and me over the edge with laughter. Twain said this about an acquaintance who had recently gone to his reward. “I didn’t attend the funeral,” said Twain, “but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” If you hear some zingers like these in our collective discourse, please let me know. We seem in desperate need of wit and levity. MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 6 UCW APRIL 28-MAY 4, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM

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