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How to Insult, Abuse & Insinuate in Classical Latin
When your contempt has reached classical proportions, crude Anglo-Saxon expletives just won't cut the mustard. Learn to express your outrage in the words of such late, great Romans as Horace, Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid -- guys who could "dis" with class! Unapologetically quoting these famous Latin writers entirely out of context, the authors have compiled a witty, wicked little lexicon of insults and invective that will soon have you demeaning, defaming, and degrading your enemies with real "animus." 6 1/2" x 7 1/4". Black-and-white illustrations.
66 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Michelle Lovric
113 books172 followersMichelle Lovric is a novelist, writer and anthologist.
Her third novel, The Remedy, was long-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. The Remedy is a literary murder-mystery set against the background of the quack medicine industry in the eighteenth century.
Her first novel, Carnevale, is the story of the painter Cecilia Cornaro, described by The Times as the possessor of ‘the most covetable life’ in fiction in 2001.
In Lovric’s second novel, The Floating Book, a chorus of characters relates the perilous beginning of the print industry in Venice. The book explores the translation of raw emotion into saleable merchandise from the points of view of poets, editors, publishers – and their lovers. The Floating Book, a London Arts award winner, was also selected as a WH Smith ‘Read of the Week’.
Her first novel for young adult readers, The Undrowned Child, is published by Orion. The sequel is due in summer 2010.
Her fourth adult novel, The Book of Human Skin, is published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2010.
Lovric reviews for publications including The Times and writes travel articles about Venice. She has featured in several BBC radio documentaries about Venice.
She combines her fiction work with editing, designing and producing literary anthologies including her own translations of Latin and Italian poetry. Her book Love Letters was a New York Times best-seller.
Lovric divides her time between London and Venice. She holds a workshop in her home in London with published writers of poetry and prose, fiction and memoir.
Her third novel, The Remedy, was long-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. The Remedy is a literary murder-mystery set against the background of the quack medicine industry in the eighteenth century.
Her first novel, Carnevale, is the story of the painter Cecilia Cornaro, described by The Times as the possessor of ‘the most covetable life’ in fiction in 2001.
In Lovric’s second novel, The Floating Book, a chorus of characters relates the perilous beginning of the print industry in Venice. The book explores the translation of raw emotion into saleable merchandise from the points of view of poets, editors, publishers – and their lovers. The Floating Book, a London Arts award winner, was also selected as a WH Smith ‘Read of the Week’.
Her first novel for young adult readers, The Undrowned Child, is published by Orion. The sequel is due in summer 2010.
Her fourth adult novel, The Book of Human Skin, is published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2010.
Lovric reviews for publications including The Times and writes travel articles about Venice. She has featured in several BBC radio documentaries about Venice.
She combines her fiction work with editing, designing and producing literary anthologies including her own translations of Latin and Italian poetry. Her book Love Letters was a New York Times best-seller.
Lovric divides her time between London and Venice. She holds a workshop in her home in London with published writers of poetry and prose, fiction and memoir.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
May 23, 2019
Loses 1.5 stars for loose, inaccurate translations and .5 of a star because the writing was sometimes hard to read, the product of red text on a red crosshatch background. However, the literary references were entertaining and the phrases in to work on in Latinate pronounciation. A fun read for Latin students bored of traditional practice phrases.
June 2, 2008
Michelle Lovric and Nikiforos Doxiadia Mardas, How to Insult, Abuse, and Insinuate in Classical Latin (Barnes and Noble, 2004)
Exactly what it claims to be: a tome on how to insult, abuse, and insinuate in classical Latin. A compendium of quotes (bilingually presented, of course) from ancient Roman authors, poets, and statesmen of questionable taste. The translation is necessarily loose in places (and loose in others for humor's sake), but still. It's fun to insult someone and not have them understand a word of it. ****
Exactly what it claims to be: a tome on how to insult, abuse, and insinuate in classical Latin. A compendium of quotes (bilingually presented, of course) from ancient Roman authors, poets, and statesmen of questionable taste. The translation is necessarily loose in places (and loose in others for humor's sake), but still. It's fun to insult someone and not have them understand a word of it. ****
May 22, 2013
2.5/5
Some parts were funny, some interesting. I wasn't sure I needed a whole section just on how women, as a whole, suck. I know it's not the author's words - they just put it together, but that section was really in poor taste and not needed. Overall, I'm left feeling slightly underwhelmed.
Some parts were funny, some interesting. I wasn't sure I needed a whole section just on how women, as a whole, suck. I know it's not the author's words - they just put it together, but that section was really in poor taste and not needed. Overall, I'm left feeling slightly underwhelmed.
April 9, 2016
Cute little book. Would be a funny gift. Kind of a tongue and cheek look at famous Latin puns and innuendo.
August 27, 2024
"Do you call that a face or a running sore?", Juvenal
"Everything you say is so unbearably boring, by Hercules, that it's murder by monotony", Plautus
"He's not a man, he's a compendium of weirdness", Plautus
"Everything you say is so unbearably boring, by Hercules, that it's murder by monotony", Plautus
"He's not a man, he's a compendium of weirdness", Plautus
March 2, 2017
What a delightful little book! Aside from just being attractive, with classically-themed images throughout, it gives the reader taste of the nasty invective that the Romans were capable of concocting. Insults are presented with the Latin, an English translation (which can occasionally be loose for humorous effect, but that's forgivable since it captures the feel of the Latin), and both the author of the quote and the work that the quote is from, which is especially nice. It's definitely not for the squeamish, since it covers the entire spectrum of ancient Roman insult, and that can be quite distasteful to a modern audience at times. But it's definitely entertaining, and it makes a great gift for any fan of ancient Rome.
September 2, 2011
More than just your typical "how to curse in Latin" book, this offers actual insults and abuses spoken/written by the ancients themselves, as well as cool illustrations. WIN. If you want something similar (and longer, but without the illustrations, alas) try Philip Matyczak's Classical Compendium.
June 23, 2010
Wonderful! Definetly need to use some curses on some people I know... ;) This book might be rated PG due to some language... but it was very entertaining and can prove extremely useful and fun. It was very short, however, and I wish it had a pronunciation key.
June 28, 2007
A humorous and totally farcical look at latin insults.
March 27, 2008
A fun little book I bought back in the 90s. Bits of Latin to titillate the illiterati.
July 2, 2008
Short but very entertaining.
Read
November 21, 2009None
Read
March 20, 2010From Ovid you there is an insult that reads like a medical diagnosis: Impurae matris prolapsus ab alvo.
March 13, 2011
Tired of english insults? Try latin. I chuckled out loud with this book.
August 13, 2011
Mufrius, non magister, or, you are not a guru, you are a gorilla, I took as a compliment. Otherwise, a good scholarly read of dead insults.
March 1, 2012
very simply a collection of insults in Latin.
May 6, 2012
Brilliant idea. So much respect for Lovric (and, naturally all the famous Romans who unknowingly contributed).
January 8, 2013
bc torlone was out and i already finished all my chapter 9 stuf...
September 21, 2013
A silly excuse to enjoy rude comments from antiquity :) I can't speak to the scholarship, but it is a fun read.
January 29, 2014
Well, that was fun. Their translations were decidedly on the creative side, reminding me pleasantly of some of the nonsense we generated from the Aeneid in high school.
June 28, 2016
This fun little book has quotes upon quotes from all the favorite Roman authors. Must-have for any Latin teacher. :-D
Read
July 22, 2026I think some of these quotes are absolute brilliance. Whenever my life starts going off the rails, I almost treat myself with this exact level of “gentle affection”:
“At last! I’ve finally managed to completely screw up my life!”
"You’re wondering why I don’t want to lead you down the aisle, Galla? You’re an intellectual, but my organ commits the occasional solecism."
“You are softer than rabbit’s fur, or goose’s down, or a dainty little ear-tip, or the decrepit organ of an old geezer, not to mention the cobwebs that hang there.”
“Anyone who thinks that Acerra stinks of yesterday’s wine is quite mistaken: Acerra always keeps drinking until tomorrow.”
“Where has all your ex-appeal gone? Ah, how did your blossom wither?”
“You can make as many sorties as you like with your seductive hands and your flattering words, but your face will always remain your own worst enemy.”
“You can see the lice on others, but not the bugs on yourself.”
“Are you wondering why I go about these days with my chin shrouded in bandages and my perfect lips smeared with thick white ointment? I don’t want to have to kiss you.”
“How unbearably tiresome it is to be too handsome.”
“Your vocabulary is in perfect harmony with your horrid habits.”
“Even if you had ten tongues, you ought to hold them all.”
“Are you still snoring? Is your slack head almost snapped on its stalk, with your face unzipped by the yawns earned in yesterday’s debaucheries? Do you have any goals in life? Is there any point of your life?”
“Struggling in vain to lift yourself out of the mud, you just get sucked deeper in.”
“I hate you because you’re a pretty boy, Sabellus.
In my book, prettiness is a dirty word.
And so is Sabellus.
I prefer war to Sabellus.
Sabellus go to hell!”
“You’re not a real lover, you’re just the shadow of a real lover.”
“I don’t like you, Sabidius, and I can’t say why. But I can say this much for sure: I don’t like you.”
“At last! I’ve finally managed to completely screw up my life!”
"You’re wondering why I don’t want to lead you down the aisle, Galla? You’re an intellectual, but my organ commits the occasional solecism."
“You are softer than rabbit’s fur, or goose’s down, or a dainty little ear-tip, or the decrepit organ of an old geezer, not to mention the cobwebs that hang there.”
“Anyone who thinks that Acerra stinks of yesterday’s wine is quite mistaken: Acerra always keeps drinking until tomorrow.”
“Where has all your ex-appeal gone? Ah, how did your blossom wither?”
“You can make as many sorties as you like with your seductive hands and your flattering words, but your face will always remain your own worst enemy.”
“You can see the lice on others, but not the bugs on yourself.”
“Are you wondering why I go about these days with my chin shrouded in bandages and my perfect lips smeared with thick white ointment? I don’t want to have to kiss you.”
“How unbearably tiresome it is to be too handsome.”
“Your vocabulary is in perfect harmony with your horrid habits.”
“Even if you had ten tongues, you ought to hold them all.”
“Are you still snoring? Is your slack head almost snapped on its stalk, with your face unzipped by the yawns earned in yesterday’s debaucheries? Do you have any goals in life? Is there any point of your life?”
“Struggling in vain to lift yourself out of the mud, you just get sucked deeper in.”
“I hate you because you’re a pretty boy, Sabellus.
In my book, prettiness is a dirty word.
And so is Sabellus.
I prefer war to Sabellus.
Sabellus go to hell!”
“You’re not a real lover, you’re just the shadow of a real lover.”
“I don’t like you, Sabidius, and I can’t say why. But I can say this much for sure: I don’t like you.”
September 1, 2018
This was not what it was billed as. It's basically a book of quotes, most of which were insulting in some way... It's a tiny (small and thin) book. There's only a few quotes per page, with drawings and arty pictures of statues and other Romanesque things. I paid $5 for my copy... It was about $4 too much
December 31, 2023
The translations aren't always the most accurate but the authors own up to it. Some of the translations are also aggressively British, which obviously isn't a bad thing but it's good to know.
The format is very fun and unique but sometimes the color of the text and the color of the background were too similar and it was difficult to read.
The format is very fun and unique but sometimes the color of the text and the color of the background were too similar and it was difficult to read.
November 22, 2018
I wanted this book since (classical) grammar school days, and I couldn't pass it today when it was on super sale. It's a very quick and funny read and makes me fell all the long hours I spent learning conjugations years ago were not wasted.
February 20, 2020
This is so funny.
January 28, 2022
Not as fun or funny as I've hoped.
February 3, 2022
It's fine.
I had hoped that it would be more instructional, but it's not at all bad for what it is.
I had hoped that it would be more instructional, but it's not at all bad for what it is.
December 3, 2022
Highly entertaining
December 8, 2023
Not quite sure why I own this. A fun idea in theory.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews