Friendly insults.

The process of choosing a blog topic is very intricate and complex. It involves such steps as random thoughts going through my head, and me deciding to write about them. The random thought for today's post came while I was talking to one of my friends from BYU (where I did my undergrad work). After a brief exchange of pleasantries, some small talk about the local weather, and an involved discussion on world peace, I realized that we didn't actually do any of these, and mostly we just traded what I would call friendly insults. Basically from greeting to farewell, we shared friendly insults, with little bits of news from our lives scattered sparingly between. And this of course, strengthened our bond of friendship at least 232 fold. So, for those who want to make their friendships stronger, I thought I'd share some of the secrets from the art of friendly insulting.


Friendly insults are usually similar to real insults, but changed slightly to add that friendly feel. Take the word "jerk" for instance. It is curt and harsh, and can inspire feelings of hatred and malice. But, add the suffix weed to it, and it becomes "jerkweed". There's an insult that inspires feelings of brotherly love, peace, and harmony. There's quite a few modified insults out there. Another personal favorite is taking the angry "Sucker" insult, and changing it to the happy-go-lucky "Suckahfish" friendly insult.



Consider the difference between these two very real examples. When the insult jerk was used, everyone felt angry or hurt. However, when jerkweed was used, there was laughter in the air, friendships were strengthened, and steps towards world peace were made.

Now that you've got some of the classics down, let's move on to the slightly more advanced friendly insults. These are the ones you make yourself, using some key words. The most important of these is "face". Face, by definition, is a term of endearment (note: It's somewhat possible that definition was made up by a friend). So by adding face to the end of nearly any insult, you immediately lighten it up and change it to a friendly insult. See how nice it sounds when you change lame to lame-o-face? The o isn't usually needed when you add face, it just makes this one flow better. Hopefully this has been educational for you. There are many more rules, but hey, let's just start with the basics. Now you're equipped to strengthen any friendship.