h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is one of my personal favorites. It comes from King Lear, Act II, Scene 2, where Kent is insulting Oswald.

Oswald: "What dost thou know me for?"

Kent: "A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking whoreson, glass gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander; and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou denyest the least syllable of thy addition."

Don't ask me what all of that means, but it sure sounds bad.

Now that's an insult Monty Python would be proud of!

Some Shakespearian insults are quite poor. One that stuck in my mind since studying Macbeth, was when the three murderers went to kill Macduff's family and his son shouts 'What you egg!' It may just have lost the edge of insult in the last 400 years or so.

Plenty of insults don't hit the mark these days as well.
Quentin Tarrantino's jibe in the 'Insults in Film' discussion certainly proves that!