In the same way that Yiddish has many words for clumsy or stupid people, English - English-English, rather than American-English - provides us with a charmingly broad and subtly-shaded range of insults for people who are tiresomely incompetent and lacking in self-awareness. The distinctions can be hard to draw, but I'm going to have a go, just for fun.

Wanker
A very important word. 'Wank' meaning masturbate, the basic inference is obvious, but 'wanker' suggests more dislike than most of its equivalents. A wanker is someone who thinks he's coming across well, and actually is coming across badly; it can also imply that he is untrustworthy, needlessly unpleasant and/or arrogant. A wanker isn't inherently aggressive, like a jerk, though he might act that way on occasion; when he offends people, it's more because he's self-absorbed and/or selfish. Unlike a jerk, he isn't purposefully mean. That would imply being interested in people other than as an audience, or a source of whatever else he needs, which a wanker usually isn't. A wanker is also someone full of himself, or pretentious. Generally, a wanker is insensitive to social nuance and has too high an opinion of his own charm, skill, intelligence, wit, strength or worth.

'Wanker' is a flexible word, and in the right circumstances could fill in for almost any other insult, but the basic meaning is of someone who never realises how bad he looks, because he is, as it were, only in dialogue with himself.

Tosser
A slightly softer insult than 'wanker', though the meaning is basically the same. A tosser is silly rather than nasty; someone either hopelessly incompetent or hopelessly pretentious.

Plonker
Again, same basic definition, but a plonker is just incompetent. Can be used with amiable contempt, but a plonker is somebody no one thinks well of; a clown that you might laugh at but wouldn't laugh with.

Berk
From Cockney rhyming slang, 'Berkley Hunt', 'berk' is less obscene than its etymology suggests. A berk is more or less a fool, someone with no sense who's an awkward blot on the social landscape.

Prat
Meaning 'backside', as in 'pratfall', a prat is a fool as well, but a more transitory state; you can, for instance, make a prat of yourself, or act like a prat, without being a prat full-time. A prat is someone who ought to be very embarrassed about how stupid he's being. Whether or not he actually will be embarrassed depends on whether he's acting like a prat, or just is a prat.

Mug
A mug is someone stupid enough to be taken advantage of; the word can apply to either gender. Not quite the same thing as a mark or a gull; a mug would make an easy mark or be easy to gull, but it's more a general trait than the result of any single situation. A mug can garner sympathy because they're so put-upon, as in the case of someone whose family always unloads the hard work onto him or her; you don't exactly respect a mug, but you can like and pity one. Referring to oneself as 'muggins' when complaining about having to do all the hard work is an offshoot of this, as in, 'You guys were all out partying while muggins here had to clean up before the landlord came!'

Git
A nasty person that nobody likes. 'Git' is generally not a name you would call someone directly without adding an adjective - 'You git!' isn't something you usually hear; more common is 'You stupid git!' or 'You lying git!'. When addressing the git directly, the word is a kind of participle noun, used to add a load of disapproval to the more specific descriptive phrase. When referring to the git in the third person, it can be a more general term of disapproval, as in 'That git over there just called me a wanker!'

Tit
A tit is generally somebody who's made a fool of themselves, as in 'I felt a right tit' or 'Look at him, hopping around like a tit'. It's much easier to be like a tit than to be a tit; to be a full-time tit, you have to make an idiot of yourself pretty consistently.

Toe rag
A cheating, disreputable scumbag of no trustworthiness, character or virtue whatsoever. A toe rag is someone who betrays his friends.

Dickhead
Pronounced 'dick-ed', even in an educated accent, a dickhead is an idiot who's either pointlessly disagreeable or has amazingly bad judgement. A dickhead is the kind of person who picks a fight with you for no reason.

Muppet
A muppet is someone who's made a mistake or done a bad job. It can be used affectionately, as in 'You left your coat behind, you muppet!'; it can also be used to criticise someone's abilities, as in 'I don't know what muppet built this for you, but I'm gonna have to charge you six hundred quid to fix it.'

Pillock
Someone of limited intelligence. 'Pillock' also carries the implication of helplessness: you wouldn't expect a pillock to stand up for himself very well.

Wally
An unsalvageably foolish person who's foolish all the time. 'Wally' is a fairly affectionate or soft term of abuse, but implies an outstanding lack of common sense. A famous example is the Sun newspaper, in an article about Prince Philip making some alarmingly racist jokes in China, calling him 'The Great Wally Of China'.


It strikes me that a key element of English insults is the idea of self-awareness: a great many of the insults denote someone who, were he aware how he was coming across, wouldn't be acting so stupidly.

The kind of insults a nation creates are an unusual insight into its general character: you wouldn't bother to invent an insult for something that nobody does or nobody minds. Whether this means that, say, England has more wankers and America has more jerks, or that England notices wankers more and America notices jerks more, I couldn't really say. (As an interesting side-note, many English people feel that 'arsehole' is a stronger insult than 'asshole', even though the only real difference is in pronunciation. Curious, huh?)

It would be interesting to hear opinions. Does anyone have a useful national insult? Or a speculation as to why insults seem to cluster around key concepts? Does your culture have insults that seem particularly specific to it?