Well my pribbling fool-born minnows, today is a good day for sharpening the pointed ends of our tongues. Today is a good day for Shakespearean insults.

But isn’t every day, really?

Among Shakespeare’s talents was his ability to coin creative forms of abuse. Where would we be without his savagery? It is all too easy to fall into vocabulary ruts, so this January I’m exploring several Shakespeare Insult Generators. Lore says that in 1996, English teacher Jerry Maguire came up with a format for creating insults that are Shakespeare-like. You can still see his original “Insult Kit” today. Over the past 20 years, however, technology has chanced, and now insult generators are a bit fancier than Macuire’s lists. Because everyone needs a bit of lightness in their day, I’ve shared a few of my favorites below.

(There is a 90% chance that I have said something truly terrible in this…