Lighting fast wit and repartee are valuable linguistic tools, and in debate can reduce your opponent to a squirming, humiliated object of derision and contempt. But we waste no sympathy on [xenzag] and [kdf], for they deserve everything they get.
However, sometimes a more measured response is required;
perhaps you need not the slings and arrows of outrageous sarcasm, but smooth, mellifluous prose in a slightly florid 19th Century style; the sort of measured, dispassionate putdown that the likes of Disraeli, Trollope and Dickens could administer, employing irony, syllogism, and perhaps even an epistolary style.
What you need is a very special sort of superhero. In his immaculate top hat, stiff wing collar and tailcoat, trousers valeted to razor-edge creases and closely-buttoned spats, he’s the one you need when you’re at a loss for words.
Listen for the clatter of iron-shod hooves on the cobbles, and the rattle of the wheels of his hansom cab; watch him dismount, elegantly straightening his cuffs and making sure his silk-lined cloak swirls around his body as he comes toward you, twirling his silver-topped Malacca cane, and carrying his black Gladstone bag in which he carries his most deadly weapon; for is it not said that “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword” ?
Sit with him and tell him your problems, then look on in admiration as he opens his case to start work, bringing out his sheaf of fine hand-laid bond paper, his iron-nibbed dip pen, and most importantly the eponymous silver pot containing his supply of pigmented writing fluid.
Yes, if you’re at your wit’s end (literally), if you can find him, maybe – just maybe – you too can hire …
… The Inkwellizer.