I have no idea why anyone thinks swearing betrays a lack of imagination

[very_improbable]

1) If it were 1929, and you were British, and you wanted to call someone a fuckup, what would you actually say?

2) If you were Harriet Vane, and you wanted to say "piss off", what would you actually say?

(Neither of these answers has to be DELICATE language, as though grown-up people who work in the liberal arts and live together in highly irregular fashion would never actually use a bad word in each other's presence whatever the era--they just have to belong to the proper, you know, idiom.)

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A bit of a "pity case"? If I had Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy to hand, I bet there's be _loads_ of options.

"Cock up" suggested is period, but is applied only to events/things, and not to people, so doesn't really work.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Also a wonderful term! Although it may not work if one is saying it of oneself by implication. Stupid 1920s London, not having direct equivalents for the slang of my people! (I actually have this problem constantly when I try to write historical fiction. It's a little embarrassing.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's the also saying if of himself bit that makes it tricky. I can't think of a single phrase that works in the way fuckup would, but a more descriptive option might, the sort of "a witty man [doing a lost puppy act] and you can be talked into anything."