The Best Insult In The World

I do apologise for the offensive language and unpleasant imagery in this song. I didn't write it, mind you, and it's far older than you or I and will no doubt last far longer than anyone we know. It's 'The Good Ship Venus' or 'Frigging In The Rigging' or whatever you're used to calling it. Please don't listen if you're offended by things which are gross, or overtly sexual, or offensive.

This version is by Loudon Wainwright III.



Ignore the depravity and filth if you can, what we're here to talk about is an early line, in which the following claim is made of the captain:

"He wasn't fit to shovel shit from one ship to another"

Now that's got to be the best insult in the world, hasn't it? Never mind your Elizabethan lexicography of disease - pox this and pustule that - never mind your fire and brimstone Christian melodrama. This is far simpler, and much more damning, with the added bonus of being impossible to gainsay.

I mean, where would you start? How can you argue against the assessment of someone who is so worthless, so utterly without charm or wit or any attractive qualities, that a job picking up dung with a spade - and not even useful dung like manure, but plain old shitty dung - and then putting it down somewhere else, is thought to be a step up from where she or he currently is in life.

I'm sure if someone said it of me, I'd want to remonstrate, clear my name, overturn this harsh judgment, but what could I say?

"I bloody AM fit to shovel shit from one ship to another, and don't you forget it!"

No, clearly not. And let's not pretend this shovelling job is providing a valuable service to the community, even though the sea shanty roots of the song might indicate otherwise. Other versions substitute the word "ship" with "place" and the meaning is exactly the same.

No-one is taking shit away so that there's no more shit around. No, this poor wretch's dream job is just picking up cack from somewhere - and let's be honest, cack is never a welcome addition to anyone's back yard, Nimby or Imby - and putting it down somewhere else.

The best he or she could hope for, is to be commended by the people who live near the shit he picks up, and tutted at by everyone else. And this is STILL thought to be beyond his or her reach, even if he or she was to try REALLY HARD.

And that's what finally makes this the perfect abuse. If hate and love are just mirror images of the same fiery passion, then the best way to really hurt someone is to show complete indifference to their best efforts, (with just a smidge of dirty pathos). Simon Cowell has made a career out of it.

All this from a song which has been handed down from generation to generation by rugby players. Culture is brilliant, isn't it?