English

From the article 'Sticks and Stones' in The Economist, titled 'The polarisation of politics has led to a new lexicon of insults' in the online edition. 'A watershed moment has arrived: traditional taboo words, pertaining to the body and excrement, no longer have the punch of group-based insults related to sex, disabilities and other such qualities, about which Western societies are increasingly sensitive. (Race-based gibes have been anathema for a while.)'The evolution of insults is the subject of Philip Gooden's new book, Bad Words. He recounts in one neat reversal the turn in the history of invective. The Sun, a British tabloid, was once in the habit of outing gay people, and even publicly defended its use of "poof" in doing so (because, the paper argued, its readers used the word, too). How times change. After abandoning the practice of outing in 1998, in 2018 the paper led a campaign to track down a bus-driver who called a reality-show star a "poofter". What it once considered lighthearted banter is now verboten homophobia.'