This brief history of insults looks at their evolutionary origins, reveals the first recorded insults, and delves into the perils putdown artists have faced across the ages.
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilisation. – Sigmund Freud
Whether we agree with Freud that civilisation first dawned the moment one of our distant ancestors looked around the cave at the faces flickering in the primal firelight and was stirred to observe “Ogg smells”, it’s hard not to see this Palaeolithic putdown as something of an improvement on a rock to the noggin. Ogg would probably think so anyway.
The recorded history of insults
While the insult may date back to the dawn of human history, it was not until the invention of writing that these treasures of civilisation could be preserved for future generations.
As the first written language, Sumerian can lay claim to the oldest recorded insults. The ceremonial and literary language of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian empires, Sumerian was inscribed in angular cuneiform script on clay tablets.
While many of these have been preserved, only a few have been translated. Fortunately for scholars of scorn, these include a number of texts rich in ancient derision. Ancient but also strangely familiar. It’s hard not to see, for example, the alpha-geek insults of TV’s The Big Bang Theory prefigured in this 4000 year old exchange between two scribes:
Girnishag: You dolt, numskull, school pest, you illiterate, you Sumerian ignoramus, your hand is terrible; it cannot even hold the stylus properly; And yet you say you are a scribe like me.
Enkimansi: What do you mean I am not a scribe like you? When you write a document it makes no sense. When you write a letter it is illegible. You are one of the most incompetent of tablet writers. What are you fit for, can anyone say?
Girnishag: Why, I am competent all around but you are the laziest of scribes, the most careless of men. When you do multiplication, it is full of mistakes. In computing areas, you confuse length and width. You chatterbox, scoundrel, sneerer, and bully.
These guys, you’d tend to assume, did not get out much.
The evolutionary history of insults
While unadorned abuse has its place, the insult finds its full flower when delivered with wit. Combining language and laughter, the funny insult is a uniquely human achievement.
Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that humour evolved as humans selected mates who were funny because humour was a marker for other qualities that would help their offspring survive: creativity, intelligence and the ability to laugh in the face of all the indignities fate sends our way. It should be noted though that, although this site is full of excellent examples of humour, and while a GSOH may make you more sexually attractive, it might be wise to exercise a degree of caution before incorporating any of these examples into your courtship behaviour.
In his book How the Mind Works, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker also suggests humour may have evolved as an anti-dominance weapon, a way to take the high and mighty down a peg.
Crime and punishment: The history of insults in law
Poking fun at the powers that be is not without risk.
Lèse majesté and the history of insults
Statute books throughout history have been littered with lèse majesté laws making it a crime to insult the monarch.
The term lèse majesté comes from the Latin phrase “laesa majestas”, meaning “injured majesty.” Taking their lead from Tiberius, later Roman emperors graciously allowed their subjects to treat them as deities, humbly accepting the legal protection that came with their divine status.
In the feudal period, this became a standard part of the aspiring warlord playbook. What was the point of proclaiming yourself absolute monarch if it didn’t give you the right to dismember anyone who dissed you?
These days this protection can be extended to the head of state and beyond. Currently, insulting the President of Azerbaijan can earn you up to two years “corrective labour” (which I like to imagine means having to write out 100,000 times “The president will not eat my shorts”), while in Thailand you can get up to 15 years in prison for insulting any Thai monarch, living or dead. In Iran, you can be sentenced to 74 lashes for insulting “any of the leaders of the three branches of government”. Or any “presidential deputies, ministers, any of the members of Parliament, or any ministry staff”. Or, indeed, “any other state employees”. In Iran, it pays to be very civil to civil servants.
Hate speech and the history of insults
The second half of the 20th century saw the rise of hate speech laws that criminalise insults inciting hatred of a particular group, which might explain why one of the few groups not targeted within these pages are lawyers specialising in hate speech prosecutions. Lovely people. Won’t hear a word said against them.
In England you could even be prosecuted when it wasn’t clear who you were insulting. Before it was repealed in 2014, section 5 of the Public Order Act saw a student fined for asking a mounted policeman “Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?” and a 16 year old prosecuted for saying “woof” to a labrador.
Blasphemy and the history of insults
Laws against religious insult and blasphemy mean even deities can claim legal protection from disparaging remarks. While it’s not immediately apparent why any god worth his or her salt would choose the judicial system over a good old-fashioned smiting, the issue is, sadly, sometimes moot; some believers seem to have so little faith in their gods’ abilities to exact vengeance that have taken it upon themselves to do it for them.
Speaking truth to power, one barb at a time
Though not without its risks, ridiculing the great and good can be a public service. The history of insults is also a history of speaking truth to power. A single well-crafted barb can reveal more of our leaders’ malfeasance than any number of noisy broadsides and no truth hurts those on high more than one that results in widespread derision.
So, braving the wrath of litigious gods and sensitive sovereigns, this site aims to collect the wittiest insults in human history.