'Forgotten swear words and my one-woman mission to revive them.'

It’s embarrassing that a writer can’t find more interesting and varied words to express her stronger feelings.

For years and years I have been overusing words ending in ‘wit’ and ‘head’. I have been known from time to time to flog a word that rhymes with shunt.

When my first daughter was born, my husband established a swear jar in an attempt to curb my profanities. There was a sliding scale; 20 cents for low level words like damn, 50 cents for the words rhyming with grit and luck and a dollar for that old Anglo Saxon beauty men love to use but are shocked when women utter it.

The proceeds of my swearing would go straight to my daughter’s bank account. On her first birthday there was around $1247 in her gap year fund.

We got rid of the swear jar. Couldn’t afford it.

Now with two extra impressionable young things in my care, I have decided the best way to tackle this addiction to swearing is to by adding more interesting expletives to my repertoire.

I am predisposed to like Victorian slang. Apparently the phrase ‘to take the Huntley’ means ‘to be most excellent’ (as in to take the biscuit, Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits being a well know brand in those days).

So I googled ‘Victorian insults’. What a goldmine.

Here are some of my favourites. Feel free to use them at every available occasion.

Meater - a street term meaning coward

Gum - loud, abusive language

Glock - half wit

Trasseno - an evil person

Shirkster - a layabout

And here are some more - not insults but glorious terms I’d like to see revived.

Afternoonified - smart
Nancy - buttocks
Nebuchadnezzar - male sexual organs

So here’s an example

“Come on, Malcolm you meater.  Why don’t you challenge the PM and be done with it? I am sick to death of all that gum in Question Time.

"How can you stand sitting in the same caucus as that glock Corey Bernardi? You better watch out for that trasseno Scott Morrison though, he’s got his eye on the big chair as well.

"Shorten might look like a real shirkster to the electorate, but a week is a long time in politics. You seem like an afternoonified kind of guy to me. I say get off your nancy and grow yourself some Nebuchadnezzar.”

Next time … Shakespearean insults and their practical application.

What swear words do you want to bring back?

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