Discussing obscure insults with the bar staff, after I said "fine, take your blood money, you strumpet!" when they made me pay the tab and none of them knew what the word "strumpet" meant. Next I shall try out a bunch of Shakespearean stuff, like "thou bull's pizzle! Thou snatch-pastry!" although I don't know whether these things are actually real, or modern writers making up imitation Shakespeare-sounding stuff. Your suggestions for mediaeval insults are invited.

@sil Uh... here in the US of A, I thought a "pizzle" was a half polar-bear half grizzly-bear hybrid? What is it there?

@troutgirl I'm not wholly sure -- these are insults from, like, four hundred years before I was born -- but I believe that (and I hesitate to say it) the pizzle may be a reference to a male cow's, ahem, procreative membrum virile. I apologise for discussing such an indecorous subject in your presence, but our boy Will S was, in fact, discussing a bull's cock :)

@sil Dude dropped the F-bomb with some regularity, so I'm not surprised!

@troutgirl I know, right! The dirty bastard :)

@sil It's a wonderfully versatile Anglo-Saxonism!!! You can use it for every part of speech, e.g. "Fucking fuckers fucking fucked me!"

@sil In fact I dare say that a non-trivial amount of Britain's GDP is due to their mastery of the term... certainly I have watched many films from the UK that availed themselves of all parts of speech!

@sil Have I mentioned that I am watching not one but TWO television shows purportedly about former members of the SAS, and they do an awful lot of swearing and drinking?