I’m not sure trying to offend someone by implying they’re gay will make you look that sophisticated.
For me it’s easier to toss out a non-sequitur. One I learned here on the Dope (“Don’t get me started on those fucking Greeks…”) works quite well. It appears as if there is meaning to it so they are usually to afraid to respond as it will show their ignorance. They feel stupid, you get the last word. Win/win.
So’s your face. That always works.
Oft-times, I’m off-handedly asked “What’re you doing?” Usually by someone who is considered mostly annoying and preceding a request for my time in assisting in something pointless and time-wasting. I’ve come-back with…
“I’m minding my own business. An admirable quality, don’t you agree?”
Once (and only once) I blurted out a come-back to someone (a friend) who was trash-mouthing me at the time. He said something about my mother…
“HEY! The only thing anyone know about your alleged parentage is that your mother had four legs and barked, and your father was a hairy baboon with a loathsome disease who came from a long line of hairy baboons with loathsome diseases.”
It occurs to me that this would be a great response to all the “NICE TITS!” and “YOU’RE FAT” catcalls in the “Things Shouted At You From Cars” thread. Men who shout at women from cars are generally trying to dominate and degrade, but acting like they just gave you a compliment would surely throw them for a loop.
“You smell.”
“Yes. I smell your breath! Shut up.”
Lust4Life, I learned, “Why do you ask?” from Anne Landers. It may not be the most stinging comeback ever, but it sure does shut folks up, don’t it?
I’m going to be the wet blanket at this party, but simply ignoring rude things really is an awesome comeback. I know it sounds cliche…
For instance, people are saying to respond with a cheery thank you. The problem with that is they can tell it is fake if you ‘over-cheer’ it, and they know they have gotten to you.
At work, my co-workers respond to abusive customers with exagerated politeness (because you really can’t tell them to go suck a dick while being monitored). The co-worker will be really exagerated and overly cheerful, “Well THANK YOU, MISS JONES, AND YOU HAVE A NIICE DAY!!!”
Whenever they do that, I can hear the unnatural sound of their voice, and it comes off forced. I can tell that the customer has gotten to them, and the customer knows it too…they win.
But if you can learn the art of conveying that you are oblivious, that kills the customer. I mean, you have to honestly respond nonchalantly as you would if the customer weren’t screaming their heads off,
“Well fuck you, you stupid fucking cunt!”
“Yes, sir. AnythingelseIcandoforyoutoday, thanks for calling Acme” (deadpanned professional polite generic sweetness. takes practice)
customer seethes
It’s all about convincing the customer that you are so on auto pilot that you didn’t even notice they are raving.
So, I’m sitting with a bunch of guys after a particularly long day near the end of a hideously trying week, eating crap food at the diner they said would be “awesome.” (I had flown to NJ to help them out with a proposal.)
A song comes on, which is admittedly rather twangy and definitely out-there Country music, but I close my eyes, lean back and smile because it reminds me of home. Smirky, snarky Yankee boy interrupts my reverie to say “Don’t tell me you LIKE this song?”
Trying to take the friendly/polite route I say, well, it talks about night-fishing, which was one of the things we claimed to be doing in high school when we took a date over to the local lake. It was basically an excuse to cover the grass stains, if you know what I mean.
Snarky boy decided that he had me, and went in for the kill, in a very contemptuous tone he leaned forward and said, “So you’re saying you were making out, on, like, a muddy embankment or something? Like, out in the open?!?”
He also said it very loudly, thinking he would embarass me.
I just leaned in closer and said “You’re a lights off kind of a guy . . . aren’t you?” with a knowing nod.
He turned three shades of green and left. He didn’t even come in to work the next day.
Mmph! Missed the edit window again, I hate that!
The key is to be completely at ease with yourself. Assume that whetever grain of truth there is to their insult, it must be inherently cool, because you did it.
Like that old saw about the Queen who condescendingly apologized to the Goban Tsoair for not placing him nearer the head of the table at dinner; he replied “My Dear Lady, wherever I sit *is *the head of the table!”
If you can’t think of a response in time, just raise your eyebrows in a “Is that the best you can do” sort of way. If you do it confidently, you make the joke fall flat. Follow with a slow nod like “Oh, I see where you were trying to go with that” then slowly turn away and put your attention on someone else.
hth
Heh. I’m glad this thread is here - I never know what to say on the spot, either.
My favorite is an old one attributed to Dorothy Parker. Another lady, a pretty young thing, motioned for Dorothy to go through a door before her, saying, “Age before beauty.” Dorothy swept on through as directed, answering with “Pearls before swine.”
I would give a lot of money to be able to come up with things like that on the spot!
You could also pull out the absurdifier. “Ugliest map ever!”, then continue with what you were doing.
Beautifully done, TruCelt! A thousand points on the retort, of course, but also points for the civil night-fishing explanation. Takes class and self-possession not to get flustered at being “corny”.
From Taking Lives:
Angelina Jolie: Fuck you.
Ethan Hawke: Fuck you? Yeah, I did fuck you.
Only works if you’ve…well, you know.
“I know I am, but what are you” is a close runner-up.
My mom and I do this one to each other all the time. Joking, of course.
The variant at my house is “DOGS before age before beauty.” Because guess who ALWAYS gets through the door first?
Australian Mark Waugh to English Jimmy Ormond, just come out to bat: “Mate, what are you doing out here? You’re not good enough to bat for England!”
Ormond: “Maybe I’m not the best batsman in England, but at least I’m the best in my family.” (Mark’s twin brother Steve was also in the side, and did indeed have better stats.)
Pakistani Javed Miandad to Australian bowler Merv Hughes: “Fat bus conductor!”
Hughes (couple of balls later, when Miandad is out): “Tickets, please!” 
It wasn’t exactly a comeback, but I pulled a good flirtacious line last week.
I had to order a new set of contact lenses, and there was a very attractive lady working the optical department. We did our business, and she said, “I’ll call you…” Before she could finish with “… when your lenses come in”, I jumped in with “I’d like that.”
Took her a second to figure out what I meant, and the look on her face was priceless.
On to more eeeeeevil content, at an old employer of mine, there was a loudmouthed jerk who was always telling off-color stories. He told about one of his dates with his then current wife, and said he asked her if she was afraid of heights.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because when we have sex, I like my women on top.” Har har har on his part.
I popped my head up over the cubicle wall and said, “Oh. I figured it was so she wouldn’t be afraid to jump down off your ego.”
I shameless steal and modify from Groucho all the time.
Anytime someone says, " I’m tense…"
I throw back. " I’m way past tense. I’m in a bungalow now."
Glenn McGrath (to Otto Brandes, tubby South African no. 11, after a 85 mph
delivery whistles past OB’s chin) : Why are you so fat?
OB: Because every time I f— your wife, she gives me a biscuit.
Lots more in similar vein here.
Here’s a good one that you can have ready for just about any put down that comes your way.
Whatever their put down, you respond with, “You know… I’m sure whatever is wrong with you has a long, Latin sounding name.”
My friend always had a certain vicious tactic for disarming any put down or joke towards him. The key is to use the fake laughter “Oh ho ho…” followed by an “I see what you did there…” and then slowly deconstruct the joke and analyze each of the parts until the joke teller is simply bored, deflated, or just never wants to tell you another insult or joke because you’ll just sit there an analyze it again and again.
“… and that’s how I screwed your mom.”
Him: “Oh… oh ho ho! That’s a good one there. I see what you did. You’re insinuating that my mother- oh man- that she’s a whore! That’s a very clever attempt right there. Especially when you made that first comment- you were setting us all up to think that your latest conquest was going to be some pretty young thing, but instead- oh ho ho! You went with MY MOTHER. Ah- good show! That’s very good- we all did not expect that because of how you delayed the insult until the very end, and you saved it- nay- you cherished it until you could finally “Drop the bomb” so to speak- by insulting my mother- by saying she must be so loose and whorish that she’d sleep with you, right? Clever boy- that’s quite funny. Do you have another?”
*For bonus points- it’s best done with a fake British accent randomly interspersed throughout the comments.
*Even Better: If your analysis ends up leading to a false assumption that somehow insults them in the process.
*Finally- it’s best to have friends around who know this method- and when you do your fake laughter- they join in with their own equally sounding fake laughter. So you have a chorus of “Oh ho ho!” “Ahh ha-ha!” going around for more confusion. Even better when you have a mix of friends and some aren’t in on the take. Just more confusion and chaos started by 1-2 people.