In my universe, there are two scientists who've caused a global accident over a hundred years prior to the story. I'd like to have their last names turned into curse words in this world. One of them is named Dr. Ritter The other, as of now, is Dr. Ball but I don't like it. Any suggestions? Thoughts? Ideas?
I think the reason 'ball' doesnt work is that its already a curse word - in terms of words that work well as insults they need to be relattively simple and end in a sylable that an be spat like oik, unt, er etc (not the last since you have ritter) , so Dr Boik ? "you complete Boik" Bob snarled " I hope you Ritter and die"
I think that might be read too frequently as boink (Although, the idea of being frequently read, is such a pile of ritter.)
that could be right - but in general you need to think about that kind of thing - derp, clush, norg etc... the other option is to have the scientists name abreviated, so may be his name is Dr Norgenstein , but the term of abuse is "you total Norg"
I agree with @big soft moose in that the names ending on a hard consonant sound really add to the ability to turn them into a swear word. If you end both of the names with hard consonant sounds, I think anything would work. Also, I love this idea. ETA: Hard consonant and probably no more than two syllables. If it is a multisyllabic name, you might run into an issue
Well quite simply use the names in a negative connotation. Exaple: "You really pulled a Dr. Ritter with that last hair-brained experiment." Seems that equating someone to another that is considered bad/inept/messed up/screw up tends to lend to the insult of being called as such. It can also have quite an impact on the receiving end. That and it still retains all the bite, without trying to change the name to a vulgar "Dr. Shitter" which really won't have quite as much sting considering that they are dead. Although Dr.Ball will kinda always lean towards the more juvenile out of force of habit i.e.: Dr. Balless. So it really takes a bit of critical thinking to turn the two botched scientists into an insult that you can readily hurl towards those that are well aware of their collective failure.
swear words basically...rather like being a complete Jeremy has entered the lexicon of rude rhyming slang thanks to Jeremy Hunt (James Blunt is reported to be very relieved)
@big soft moose Love norg!!! Ah hahahaha! You norgs, or, oh, what about go norg yourselves! .....ROFL! ^ ^ Almost like troglodytes in terms of funness (yeah, I know funness is not a real word, but helloooo, Shakespeare!)
Does Dr. Ritter have a first/middle/nick name, maybe it would lend itself well to an swear word? I feel like the strongest, most visceral swear words follow a pattern of being single syllable, and like someone else mentioned end in a hard consonant. Something you can say under a breath or through a snarl smoothly. Norg is almost playful to me, like calling someone a dork, the o in the middle just changes the feel. Ritter feels long in the mouth for a swear word, once you start flexing it like "rittering" it starts getting a little cumbersome. Just my 2 cents at least.
Instead of making them curse words, why not make them derogatory terms? "Quisling", for example, is used to refer to "a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force" (Wikipedia). "Ritter" could thus be someone who does something really stupid, terrible, or whatever the original Ritter did.
Another interesting method might be to use a name of a scientist (or anyone else) who's highly respected in our universe. Franklin, Darwin, Newton and so on give you the added advantage of being able to easily convert them into -ing forms (you Darwin' moron!). Stick it up your Marconi! Also consider names from other cultures. And finally, I challenge you to say "invented invective" three times, fast.
