Written by Slang City columnist A. C. Kemp, The Perfect Insult is a word lover's guide to perfectly nasty language. Should tell your foe “You ain’t my road dog,” or zap him with Shakespeare’s “never hung poison on a fouler toad”? Is it better to suggest that your ex-boyfriend has undergone an orchidectomy or announce that his new girlfriend’s ruby lips remind you of a carbuncle? From rap lingo and playground taunts to obscure words of antiquity, The Perfect Insult for Every Occasion has it all.

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Product Description

Forget apologies and excuses-sometimes, a well-spoken insult is the proper response. And now, with a cigarette in one hand and a martini in the other, fictional socialite Lady Arabella Snark (aka linguist A. C. Kemp) shows you how to use malicious language and stinging zingers to your advantage.

With just the right amount of pomp and humor, Lady Snark offers essential advice for gaining the upper hand at school, work, parties, and family reunions, including how to:

• Defend yourself against know-it-alls
• Answer rude questions in an equally rude manner
• Deliver impeccable insults
• Master weird and obscure put-downs

From dealing with drunks to sabotaging your husband's mistress, The Perfect Insult for Every Occasion is a funny and offbeat tour of the dark side of manners. Aggravating coworkers, nasty neighbors, mean in-laws? They're all rendered powerless when you have the perfect comeback-for any situation.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #549290 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

The Boston Phoenix March, 2008
We're likely the sort alpha-individuals refer to, smirkingly, as a "meek-voiced door-mat." Yes, someone said this to us once. It was awful! Our insides were quaking, and yet we were unable to properly defend ourselves! But it doesn't have to be that way. Help has arrived, friends, and we are delighted to share the news. In this week's fishwrap, we wrote about Lady Arabella Snark's (a/k/a A.C Kemp -- writer, slang expert, and MIT lecturer) The Perfect Insult for Every Occasion. Basically, the book is our NEW BIBLE, and that's not something we admit to lightly. Particularly when our Jewish mom is maybe reading this.

Public radio's A Way With Words, March, 2008
"The Perfect Insult for Every Occasion: Lady Snark's Guide to Common Discourtesy" by A.C. Kemp contains lessons on using ten-dollar words to confuse and insult people. It's a humorous question-and-answer back-and-forth of what happens when high and low culture meet, with quizzes, example sentences, and smart-aleck remarks.

About the Author
Linguist and pop culture maven A.C. Kemp is the director of the award-winning American slang website Slangcity.com, and her innovative classes on slang and American culture have been profiled in The Boston Globe and The Christian Science Monitor. She is a lecturer in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Etiquette expert Lady Snark grew to fame through her deportment class for inmates at the Haverford Women's Correctional Facility. Once a world traveler, the much-widowed and twice-incarcerated authoress now lives year round in Bar Harbor, as the conditions of her parole prevent her from leaving the excruciatingly dull state of Maine.

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Customer Reviews

Smart AND funny
This is a funny book of edginess and insults, wrapped around an insightful book about the way we use language. Highly recommended both for laughs and "aha" moments...

Snarkalicious
An artful and humorous take on society, language and manners--as well as ample advice for a carefully considered jab to the social solar plexus. Author AC Kemp manages to pay homage to the best nineteenth-century etiquette guides while also giving an instructive and amusing tour of slang, insults, and the art of the backhanded compliment through the character of Lady Snark. Socialites, beware!

Boring, boring, boring.
This book promises to be really creative and funny. It's not. It's a little sarcastic, but mostly it's both brittle and didactic. [A difficult combination, no?] There are not enough good one-liners and too much deportment training.