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Find yourself tempted to say that effin word too often? Modern english is rather unimaginative when it comes to expletives, contenting itself with a paucity of four letter equivalents for the range of human distress.
Elizabethans took a delight with language, weaving together terms to form stinging phrases of wit. As a faire worker, these equivalents are not only fun, but don't make parents with children glare at you. You could say fie (f-eye) or you could swear by God's teeth or wounds (Z'wounds). As a tradesman, you might swear by your hammer or tongs, or any other object of untarnished purity. (Good Elizabethans would not, as a rule, swear by Odin's beard or similar heresy.) Should that eff-word be particularly required, the learned Elizabethan would employ the common verb swive. Humorous modern effects result from the application of terms such as pig farker, which of course means pig farmer and is not an insult at all.
For a reference on such terms, try Shakespeare's Bawdy by Eric Partridge. Also try Shakespeare's Insults: Educating Your Wit, the student's companion Shakespeare's Insults for Teachers, and more generally Opus Maledictorum: A Book of Bad Words. and Talking Dirty by Jeremy Ellis.
Or the out-of-print Bozzimacoo by Mary Marshall, the out-of-print Shakespeare's Insults for Doctors or Lawyers, or the out-of-print Book of Insults Ancient and Modern by Nancy McPhee.
Or to create your own curses, memorize some choice terms from the list below, two adjectives and a noun minimum per curse please.
Some samples:
Thou spleeny fat-kidneyed skainsmate... Thou reeky hasty-witted miscreant... Thou vain rough-hewn clotpole... Thou mangled rude-growing flirt-gill... Thou villainous beetle-headed dewberry...
From: mal6315@cs.rit.edu (Matthew A Lecher)
Subject: Here they are, the Shakespearian insults!!!!!!
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 16:03:35 GMT

> Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced
> with "Thou":
> Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
>
> artless base-court apple-john
> bawdy bat-fowling baggage
> beslubbering beef-witted barnacle
> bootless beetle-headed bladder
> churlish boil-brained boar-pig
> cockered clapper-clawed bugbear
> clouted clay-brained bum-bailey
> craven common-kissing canker-blossom
> currish crook-pated clack-dish
> dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole
> dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb
> droning doghearted codpiece
> errant dread-bolted death-token
> fawning earth-vexing dewberry
> fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon
> froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench
> frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill
> gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker
> goatish fly-bitten fustilarian
> gorbellied folly-fallen giglet
> impertinent fool-born gudgeon
> infectious full-gorged haggard
> jarring guts-griping harpy
> loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig
> lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast
> mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger
> mangled hell-hated jolthead
> mewling idle-headed lewdster
> paunchy ill-breeding lout
> pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie
> puking knotty-pated malt-worm
> puny milk-livered mammet
> quailing motley-minded measle
> rank onion-eyed minnow
> reeky plume-plucked miscreant
> roguish pottle-deep moldwarp
> ruttish pox-marked mumble-news
> saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook
> spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg
> spongy rude-growing pignut
> surly rump-fed puttock
> tottering shard-borne pumpion
> unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane
> vain spur-galled scut
> venomed swag-bellied skainsmate
> villainous tardy-gaited strumpet
> warped tickle-brained varlet
> wayward toad-spotted vassal
> weedy urchin-snouted whey-face
> yeasty weather-bitten wagtail
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