What you lack in evidence or convincing argument, you make up with conviction.

From The Royal Tenenbaums:

"Why did you specifically have to point out I'm not a genius?"

"I just don't use that word very lightly."

I don't have one in English, but I have some in German for those who understand.

My Granddad had a female coworker that was higher in rank than him. He would always greet her with "Meine Allerwerteste". It's a word play because "Meine Werteste" is equivalent to a very formal version of "my dear". "Aller" is a superlative form, so basically "My very dearest". But "Mein Allerwertester" (so the male form of what he used) means "my ass".

The other one is to use terminology like "Er versucht immer sein Bestes zu geben" ("He always tries to give his best"). In Austria, you are legally allowed to ask for a work testimony from your employer when you are looking for a new job. There is some legislation that prohibits negative speech in these work testimonies so that your employer cannot make you look bad in front of your potential new employer (which makes the whole concept pretty useless, but it is what it is). So to get around that, employers adopted a kind of "secret" code where e.g. "tries to" means "fails to". So you can use the same kind of terminology to deliver something that sounds like a compliment, but for everyone in the know (which is most people by now) it's clear that you deeply offended the person you are talking about.

!rareinsults@lemmy.world

What in interesting use of free will

lemmy.ml might be a good instance for you.

I must have used up all my luck before meeting you

My brother got sassy with me once, he said "you think you're so much smarter than me, huh?"

"No, I don't think I'm smarter than you."

I have always respected him the more because I know that he dislikes flattery as much as he deserves it. (Voltaire)

I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

I've never met anyone else so unshakeable in their convictions.

Je viens d'en entendre quelques unes très bonnes : "Tu n'es pas un père mais un courant d'air." À une personne qui noie le poisson, "tu prend ton élan pour mentir."

I fucked your cousin