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]

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."