MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT

(No cats were harmed in the making of this blog.)

Which is to say, there is more than one way to say just about anything. Idioms, slang, and dialect vary greatly by geographic location and by time, so they can be a great way to ground a character in a particular time and place. Here, for your enjoyment and inspiration, are some variations on common concepts.

Drunk

Commode-hugging drunk
  • Inebriated
  • Intoxicated
  • Buzzed
  • Blitzed
  • High
  • Knee-walkin’ drunk
  • Commode-hugging drunk
  • Boozed up
  • Feeling no pain
  • Plastered
  • Ploughed
  • Bladdered
  • Liquored up
  • Under the influence 
  • Seeing double
  • Wall-eyed
  • Goggled
Sloshed
  • Stewed
  • Pickled
  • Battered
  • Blotto
  • Pissed
  • Three sheets to the wind
  • Drinks like a fish
  • Lit up like a Christmas tree
  • Drunk as a skunk
  • Pissed as a newt
  • Tight as a tick
  • Rat-arsed
Legless
  • Under the table
  • Bend an elbow
  • In the bag
  • In his/her cups
  • On Liquorpond Street
  • Away with the fairies
  • Have a load on
  • Well oiled
  • Lush
  • Worse for wear
  • Off the wagon
  • So drunk he opened his shirt collar to piss

Evil/Mean

Covidiot
  • Devil
  • Scum bucket
  • Sinner
  • The second half of saints and sinners
  • Troublemaker 
  • Villain
  • Benighted
  • Snake in the grass
  • Back-biting
  • Oxygen thief
  • Lower than a snake’s belly (in a wagon rut)
  • Sonofabitch 
  • Abbreviated piece of nothing
  • Farging icehole

Frigidity/Arousal/Sex (Female)

Amazons
  • Colder than a witch’s tit
  • Cold fish
  • Like making love to a corpse
  • Enough to make a man choose celibacy 
  • Built like a brick shit-house
  • Body to die for
  • Man magnet
  • Everyman’s wet dream
  • Wanton
  • On the pull
  • Always ready to ride
  • Just call her Eveready
  • Get a bit of sugar stick
  • Make a sausage sandwich
  • Give juice for jelly
  • Little Miss Roundheels
  • Celing Inspector
  • MILF/ GILF
  • No better than she should be
  • She’ll put out for anything in pants
  • She’s had more pricks than a secondhand dartboard
  • Scarlet woman  
  • Cougar
  • Cure for an Irish toothache
  • Go like a herd of turtles

Impotence/Arousal/Sex (Male)

Bro or Dude-bro
  • Can’t get it up/ can’t keep it up
  • Wilts like cut flowers in the sun
  • Drained away like an ice cube in the desert
  • Get a hard on
  • Get his rocks off
  • Carrying a woody
  • Hung like a prize bull
  • Butter her buns
  • Put his little hat on
  • He’s a regular Energizer Bunny
  • Manwhore
  • Roacher
  • Rake
  • Lounge lizard
  • Beau-nasty
  • Dipping his wick
  • Jumping her bones
  • Doing a little front-door work
  • Ring her bells/chimes
  • On the make
  • Jesuit boxer
  • Punk
  • Gym rat
  • Tosser
  • He’d fuck anything with a hole in
  • He gets more ass than a toilet seat
  • All mouth and no trousers

Incompetent

Not the sharpest tool in the shed/ brightest crayon in the box
  • All foam, no beer
  • Doesn’t have all her cornflakes in one box
  • All the cheese slid off his cracker
  • Body by Fisher, brains by Mattel
  • Can’t find his ass with both hands
  • Her sewing machine is out of thread
  • Receiver is off the hook
  • Skylight leaks a little
  • Not up to XXX
  • Not cut out for XXX
  • Out to lunch
  • Just doesn’t have it
  • Can’t walk and chew gum at the same time
  • He would fuck-up a wet dream
  • Not able to hit the ground with his hat
  • Batting zero
  • One step forward, three steps back

Lazy

Permanently set to “Stand-By”
  • Layabout
  • Do-nothing
  • Shiftless
  • Slow as molasses in January
  • Doesn’t have the gumption God gave a turnip
  • His get up and go has got up and gone
  • Too lazy to scratch an itch
  • Wouldn’t even scratch his ass if he could get someone else to do it for him
  • Laggard
  • Goldbrick
  • Freeloader
  • Sponger
  • He counts sawing logs as working

Mentally Unbalanced

Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs
  • Insane
  • Bonkers
  • Crazy
  • Berserker
  • Cracked
  • Lunatic
  • Deranged
  • Mad as a hatter
  • Nut case/job
  • Fruitcake
  • Potty
  • Psycho
  • Mental
  • Unglued
  • Batty
  • Bats in the belfry/attic
  • Looney (Tunes)
  • Has a screw loose
  • Sees the world slant/sideways
  • Has his/her own reality

Stupid

The lights are on, but nobody’s home.
  • World’s only living brain donor
  • Musclebound between the ears
  • Not enough brains to give himself a headache
  • Not the sharpest tool in the shed
  • A few clowns short of a circus
  • A few fries short of a Happy Meal
  • An experiment in Artificial Stupidity
  • A few beers short of a six-pack
  • Dumber than a box of rocks
  • A few peas short of a casserole
  • Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt
  • The wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead
  • One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl
  • Sharp as a corner on a round table
  • One taco short of a combination plate
  • A few feathers short of a whole duck
  • Warning: objects in mirror are dumber than they appear
  • Couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel
  • Fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down
  • An intellect rivaled only by garden tools
  • As smart as bait
  • His chimney’s blocked
  • She’s so dumb she thinks her bottom is just to sit on
  • Elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor
  • Forgot to pay his brain bill
  • Antenna doesn’t pick up all the channels
  • His belt doesn’t go through all the loops
  • If he had another brain, it would be lonely
  • Missing a few buttons on her remote control
  • No grain in the silo
  • Proof that evolution CAN go backwards
  • Several nuts short of a full bar
  • Surfing in Nebraska
  • Slinky’s kinked
  • Too much yardage between the goalposts
  • One of her dogs has slipped the leash
  • Dead from the neck up
  • Only 50 cards in his deck

Ugly

A face like the south end of a horse walking north
  • A face only a mother could love
  • A face not even a mother could love
  • Should have been drowned at birth
  • As for how s/he looks, s/he has a great personality
  • Homely
  • Ill-favored
  • Not much to look at
  • As attractive as hairs on a mole
  • Beaten with an ugly stick
  • Doesn’t need a mask for halloween
  • A face that could crack mirrors
  • Face that could scare the walking dead
  • “If my dog was as ugly as he is, I’d shave his butt and walk him backward!”
The Bard is a very useful friend to those looking for creative insults.

For more feline desquamation alternatives, browse through variations of slang used in countries where English is spoken around the world. Some of my favorites are Irish, Scottish, Jamaican, Kiwi, Australian, South African, and New York English. (Yes, New York English deserves a separate listing.) If you really want be specific about a character’s background, consider idioms and slang distinct to a particular region within a country.

Bottom line for writers: fresh phrases or clichés, take your pick.