In the American West, a man’s reputation could be destroyed as easily with a well-aimed insult as with a bullet. While popular memory fixates on Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles, many of the era’s deadliest weapons were verbal. In a society where a single careless word could end a life, cowboys, gunfighters, and gamblers developed a rich vocabulary of inventive, brutal, and often hilarious insults. They did not simply call a man mean; they said he was so angry he would swallow a horned toad backwards.
They did not merely call a man ugly; they said he looked like the hindquarters of bad luck. These sayings were delivered with deadpan faces while hands rested near holsters. One sharp phrase could empty a saloon or fill a graveyard. The insults of the Old West were not casual name-calling.
They were carefully constructed verbal portraits designed to cut deep. A man might be described as so spiteful he would steal a fly from a blind spider, or so vicious he would fight a rattlesnake and give it the first bite. Another was said to be mean enough to steal a penny off a dead man’s eyes. The language escalated quickly.
A man could be so tough that ordinary fighting seemed like a prayer meeting to him, and he promised that when he was finished with his opponent, there would not be enough left of him to make a sound. He might be so dangerous he would eat from the same plate as a snake, so enraged he would bite himself, or so fierce he would hunt bears with a switch. Some men gritted their teeth so hard they appeared capable of biting the side off a six-shooter. Ugliness was a favorite target, and the descriptions were merciless.
A man could be homelier than a freshly sheared sheep. His teeth might be so crooked he could eat corn through a picket fence. His face could be as wrinkled as a wet sheepskin stretched before a hot fire. A woman might have a face like cheap dog meat.
A man could be as ugly as a burnt boot, so repulsive he had to sneak up on a dipper of water to get a drink. He was the hindquarters of bad luck itself, with a lip that hung like a blacksmith’s apron. Some were so hideous they could make a buzzard back off a corpse wagon, so bad-looking their ears drooped, or so offensive they could make a freight train take a dirt road. A man could be as ugly as homemade sin, and a woman so homely she could drive a vulture off a meat wagon.
Some insults were so profane they nearly required a warning label. A man might be crazy enough to eat the devil with his horns on, or so far out of his mind that his wits were clearly not present. He was as crazy as popcorn on a hot stove, as mad as a sheepherder, or so unbalanced that someone had stolen his compass. One could be crazier than a raccoon run over by a wagon, and some could make an insult sound like poetry, dark poetry at that.
The West also had a deep well of insults for the slow-witted. A man was said to be studying to be a fool, or so empty-headed that his skull was not fit to be a cup for a canary to drink from. He could not teach a hen to cluck, and knew no more about a subject than a pig knows about a pocket in a swimsuit. His knife was so dull it could not cut hot butter, and he could not tell manure from wild honey.
If all his brains were dynamite, there would not be enough to blow his own nose. He could not find a lame cow under a shady tree or track an elephant in the snow. He was so stupid he could not drive a nail into a snowbank, dull as dishwater, and so weak above the ears that he could not tell a skunk from a house cat. He might wear an expensive hat on a worthless head, and his family tree was nothing but a bush.
He could not track a wagon through a swamp, and beneath his hat there was nothing but hair. He could not hit the ground with his hat in three throws, and he lacked brains the way a turtle lacks feathers. Some of these phrases were so sharp they could start a fight before the last word even left a man’s mouth. Laziness was another favorite target.
A man could be as slow as molasses in January, too lazy to yell at a pig pen, or move with the speed of a wounded turtle. He was so indolent that molasses would not run down his legs. The precision of these insults was remarkable. They did not simply call a man ugly or mean; they painted a complete picture.
A man could be so thin he could take a bath in a gun barrel, and if he closed one eye he looked like a needle. Another was so fat he would need to be tied down with strong ropes to stay in a saddle, and some were built like a snake on stilts. Many of these words were delivered with a smile, which made them even more dangerous. A man could grin like a weasel in a henhouse, be as happy as a pup with two tails, or smile like a jackass eating cactus.
Another was as cheerful as a jaybird, grinning like an idiot. These were not passing remarks. A well-spoken insult could follow a man from town to town for years. A man could be so slippery he could swallow nails and spit out twisted bolts, or lie so expertly that anyone who did not believe him was a fool.
He was as crooked as a dog’s hind legs, and he lied as naturally as he breathed. Hearing such phrases makes it clear why so many barroom arguments in that era ended in gunfire. Even a man’s voice could be insulted. One might sound like a wagon wheel needing grease, or sing well enough to make a she-wolf jealous.
His voice could torture the air, or sound like a jackass with a bad cold. The Old West had a gift for turning ordinary things—snakes, vultures, boots, and sheep—into weapons. A man might lack the manners to feed a bear, or be so uncoordinated he could not hit a bull in the backside with a handful of banjos. He could be as drunk as a fiddler, or as nervous as a cat with a long tail in a room full of rocking chairs.
One man stayed in the desert so long he knew all the lizards by their first names. Another was not worth wasting a bullet on to clean your gun, and his mustache smelled like a rotten saddle blanket after three hundred miles in August on a sore-backed horse. The drought was so bad that tumbleweeds were chasing the dogs for shade. A man could be as dead as a canned oyster, and his presence was as unwelcome as a rattlesnake at a square dance.
A saloon could be so bad that a snake would be ashamed to meet its mother there. One man did not last long, like a bottle of whiskey at a poker game with five players. But a woman might be as pretty as a spotted pup, a man as poor as a church mouse, or as rich as thick possum gravy.