Are you a snollygoster or a throttlebottom? SUSIE DENT explores English’s lost lexicon of exotic put-downs

Back in the early Noughties, the editors of the Oxford Dictionary Of English noticed something interesting about the words they were about to include in their second edition.

Their new volume, based on strict evidence of current language in use, offered more than 350 ways of poking fun at someone. Compliments, on the other hand, totalled just 40. 

For every chucklehead, clot, chump, herbert, gillygawpus, numpty, tosspot and plonker, there was just a mere sprinkling of cutiepies or patooties.

The editors’ conclusion was that human nature relishes a put-down, particularly the cheeky kind. 

And it’s hard to disagree when one traditional insult has been much on show recently, notably during the recent by-election in Clacton, when some residents complained that the whole affair had made them look like ‘right plonkers’.

Even the most superficial riffle through the historical dictionary will tell you that this is nothing new. 

Centuries of practice have made the art of the playful insult one of our most reliable growth industries. And it turns out that 350 is nothing compared with what history has to offer.

Sycophants, for example, are particularly well catered for in the historical lexicon.

Anyone resenting a fawning flatterer in their office today might appreciate that a ‘toady’ was originally a ‘toadeater’ – the assistant to a charlatan who, to the gasps of packed audiences at market fairs in 19th-century Britain, would pretend to eat a poisonous toad before being ‘miraculously’ cured by the quack doctor with one of his bogus potions.

One hundred years on, any valet who followed their master or mistress too closely for comfort would become known as a ‘catchfart’, since following the political wind gave them a little more than they bargained for.

Speaking of politics, there is inevitably no shortage of lampoons for public servants. Beware the ‘snollygoster’, for example: 19th-century speak for a shrewd but unprincipled politician. 

A quockerwodger, meanwhile, was originally a wooden toy whose limbs jerked about when its strings were pulled; it didn’t take long before the insult was applied to a puppet politician.

Finally, we have the ‘throttlebottom’ – the bumbling, inept kind of public servant who takes their name from a hapless vice-president in a 20th-century musical.

Anyone so desperate to hold onto office that they will resort to anything might deserve the name of ‘stiffrump’ – one who refuses to budge. 

Preeners and hectors also attract a few choice epithets, from the ‘bayard’ (defined as ‘one who speaks with all the confidence of ignorance’) to the ‘popinjay’ and the ‘pavoniser’, two dismissals based on the ostentatious behaviour of parrots and peacocks respectively.

Creating the perfect insult was even once an area of study. In the 16th century, Scottish poets would compete in ‘flyting’, a contest in which two people would assail each other with the juiciest tirades they could come up with.

And, of course, Shakespeare was a master of the jibe. No one has ever been able to match such outbursts as this from Henry IV, Part II: ‘Away, you scullion! You rampallion! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!’

All becomes clear when you learn the Bard was using ‘catastrophe’ here to mean the backside. Much like ‘prat’, which meant ‘a single buttock’, hence the comedy ‘pratfall’.

The 18th century saw the publication of The Classical Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue, compiled by the antiquary and lexicographer Francis Grose, who set out to record the language that other lexicographers shied away from: that of thieves and highwaymen, brothel-owners and tavern-keepers.

It is not for the squeamish, but there is plenty of humour here if you can stomach it. Here we learn that an ‘admiral of the narrow seas’ is ‘one who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite him’. 

This is arguably better than the vice-admiral of the same seas, namely ‘A drunken man that p***es under the table into his companion’s shoes.’

Grose’s collection is proof that insults based on the male anatomy were going strong even in the 1700s. 

To give just one example: ‘Rantallion: one whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, ie whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece’.

Two hundred years on, we have equally phallic insults, of which the mildest has to be that word again –

Del Boy’s favourite, ‘plonker’.

The 1900s arguably gave us the insults we view most affectionately today, such as ‘numpty’, ‘muppet’, ‘doofus’, ‘clot’ and ‘tosspot’. 

Some come with intriguing stories: it’s thought that ‘wally’ originated in a real-life Wally who became separated from his companions at a 1960s pop festival; his name was announced many times over the Tannoy and was quickly taken up as a chant by the crowd.

Today, pensioners in Liverpool continue to go by the fondly bestowed nickname ‘twirlies’, because they consistently arrive ‘too early’ for their free bus travel. 

And in France, many of us can surely relate to the name ‘tamalous’, a collective term for those who are getting on a bit in age and so greet each other not with news of their latest holiday or night out but rather with the question, T’as mal ou? ‘Where does it hurt?’

New evidence shows that the more we reach for happy, positive words, the better we ourselves will feel, thanks to a rise in our serotonin levels or feelgood hormones.

Perhaps that’s why so many of the oldest insults, from the ‘spanner’ and ‘muppet’ to the ‘doofus’ and the ‘herbert’ – tend to be used with a nudge and a smile. 

It’s a fact worth remembering the next time you meet a real-life wally and feel like tickling their catastrophe.