The date is...not exactly known, but around the middle of August 1990. The location is...known: Gütersloh, Germany. A bored games designer takes some time off to code a small program based on an idea originally by two friends of his, concocted in the early summer of 1987. The first version of this program gets released on 29 August 1990, and is named "Wowbagger (the Infinitely Prolonged)". Its goal: To insult when- and wherever possible. Its use: None. Platform: Atari ST.
Various enhanced versions appear in the months and even years after that: The configurable "Son Of" (February 1993), the extended "Final Son Of" (May 1993), the GEM-enhanced "Grandson Of" (August 1994) and the totally flexible and even more extended "Final Grandson Of" (July 1998). This "Final Grandson Of" is the last version to be released on the Atari platform.
Around the time when this same programmer feels his way around the intricacies of "Visual Basic" on Windows platforms, early summer 1998, the first PC (Windows 95/NT) version is released - "The Reincarnation of the Final Grandson Of" (June 1998). An improved (read: debugged, but also enhanced) version is released in July of that year. Due to a pretty terrible hard disk crash (combined, needless to say, with said programmer’s habit of not making regular enough backups) the source code is lost that same month. A grim day in the history of profanity and creative insultry alike :-).
In August 1999, with the erection of the "Wowbagger" support site and rekindled interest in the program, a new version is thought of, now "The Second Reincarnation of..." (a.k.a. "Wowbagger 6"). In November, time is allocated to sit down and do the nitty gritty. This latest version includes more words (of course) and lots more different languages.
December 2nd 2004 sees the release of "The Fifth Anniversary Edition", version 6.6.6. This to celebrate the 5th anniversary of 'The Second Reincarnation' and release upon mankind of a version that is rather more bug-fixed for operating systems like Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
After 2008 or 2009 sees the loss of all source files once more, a hiatus sets in. In March 2013, after having mastered the rudiments of PHP and MySQL, the original programmer once again finds energy and inclination to streamline the site into a web-based insult experience, with the software download side of things becoming less emphasised. A new monicker is thought up: The Third Reincarnation of the Final Grandson of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.
Around Yuletide 2013, the software side is eventually entirely discontinued. Summer 2017 sees the addition of an API that allows for other sites to use Wowbagger's insult functionality (see below).
A character from Douglas Adams’ "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" (to be more precise, in the third volume of the series, entitled "Life, the Universe and Everything"), Wowbagger is a person who’s had a, shall we say, incident with a time travelling machine, some liquid lunch and a pair of elastic bands. Due to this incident he became immortal, which was initially a lot of fun, but after a while caused him to work up quite a grudge against the universe. Henceforth known as Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, he set out to insult every creature in the entire universe - in alphabetical order. The unabridged version of this story can be found here. More information on Douglas Adams can be found on his official site, https://www.douglasadams.com.
You can get the password, which is required to generate insults that consist wholly or partly of XXX-rated phrases, by clicking here. This semi-roundabout way of telling you the password is to make sure that nobody will get seriously offended by accident.
"Wowbagger" is far from perfect. Some languages do not support too many possible insults. Some languages are sadly missing completely. If you think you can help by supplying me with extra words and phrases, or perhaps analysing the grammar of a language that has so far not yet been implemented (maybe not even in the list yet!), do feel free to contact me, but don’t send any research just yet. Instead, click here to help.
In exchange for your efforts, however, I can offer you nothing other than a credit in the upcoming version of this page. Global fame or a feasible means to retire to some Pacific island, alas, you will have to attain through other means :-).
The site's actual insulting functionality can be called from within another site if you want. Insults will, however, always be in English and rated friendly. You can use the following parameters (which are all case-sensitive):
no_gui: Gets rid of all HTML make-up if set to 1. (example: www.wowbagger.com/process.php?no_gui=1)
complete: Gets rid of everything except for the actual insult when set to 0. Only functions when no_gui is set to 1. (example: www.wowbagger.com/process.php?no_gui=1&complete=0)
insulter: Replaces the 'Wowbagger' text by this one. Spaces are allowed. The insulter parameter is ignored when the complete parameter is set to 0. (example: www.wowbagger.com/process.php?no_gui=1&insulter=John Doe)
victim: Replaces the 'You are' text by this text, followed by 'is'. Spaces are allowed. (example: www.wowbagger.com/process.php?no_gui=1&insulter=John Doe&victim=Donald Trump)
(if insulter and victim are identical, the 'You are' part of the insult will be replaced by 'I am')
credit: You can set credit to 0 if you don't want the Wowbagger credit to appear at the end of each insult phrase. (example: www.wowbagger.com/process.php?no_gui=1&victim=Donald Trump&credit=0)
I am rather proud to say that none of the words used here are fictitious, though quite a few may very much seem to be. I started using a standard dictionary, the "Superior People’s Dictionary" by Peter Bowler, and the help of some song lyrics as well as the assistance of a great variety of people. The initial hoard of gross words was supplied by Carcass’ "Symphonies of Sickness" lyrics. Then followed various dictionaries (most notably amongst which is "Slang and Euphemisms" by Richard Spears) as well as quite a lot of words heard on the BBC series "Red Dwarf". Further credits go to "Birds of a Feather", "Beavis & Butthead", a very old DOS-based program of which I’ve quite forgotten the name, "South Park" (though not as much as I had expected), DBA Magazine, Joseph Heller, "Blackadder", various Thesauri, the extremely funny "Paperweight" by Stephen Fry (the man’s a genius!), the wonderfully irreverent "Duckman" cartoons, David Thorne’s "A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar" (for the initial Welsh stuff) and the Netflix series "Paradise P.D.". Dutch inspiration further came from Eric Schreurs’ "Joop Klepzeiker" and "Geharrebar", the Facebook "Grandiloquent Word of the Day" page, and Captain Haddock utterings from several "Tin Tin" comic books. And life, of course.
Thanks go to: Dave and Tim Moss of The Lost Boys (for initial help in establishing the English insult building blocks dictionary); Stefan Posthuma, Dave Bloemendaal and Jordy (for the initial Dutch vocabulary); Jeff Zalkind (who helped establish the first set of German words); Dafne Wesenaar (Spanish info); Grazio Falzon (Maltese grammar assistance); Dave Lacerda; Michael Raasch (German); Lars Johansson (for inestimable help with the Swedish department); Ronny Hatlemark (for putting me on the right track with Norwegian); Matthew M. Murphy (for a lot of Shakespearean-like insult phrases); Todd Clements (help with Shakespearean stuff too); Steve Cohen (Pissed Off’s Self Abuse Generator); Christopher Hitchens (lots of cool words from his memoirs); Susie Dent (especially her Word of the Day tweets); Martin Janda (Czech); Anssi Hyytiäinen (Finnish); Ville Saalo (Finnish); Thomas Tavoly (Hungarian); Laura van der Linden (French, too); Michael Dufek (creator of a German "Schimpfwortgenerator"); Susana Antunes (Portuguese); Jonny Nott (for PHP, MySQL and utf-8 diacritical help); Mark Mandel (Esperanto); Adriaan Lategan (Afrikaans).
The author of this software will not accept ANY responsibility for ANYTHING (including toes trod on, sensitivities violated, wraths triggered and senses of humour overflown). It should be noted that the XXX-rated curses are genuinely offensive. They will NOT appear unless you enable them explicitly by using the password. Don't say I didn't warn you :-)