Insult

An insult is an expression, statement, or behavior that is often deliberately disrespectful, offensive, scornful, or derogatory towards an individual or a group.

In ancient Rome, political speeches and debates were known to include strong harshness and personal attacks.

[clarification needed][9] Erving Goffman points out that every "crack or remark set up the possibility of a counter-riposte, topper, or squelch, that is, a comeback".

For example, according to James Bloodworth, "incel" “has gradually crept into the vocabulary of every internet troll, sometimes being used against men who blame and harass women for not wanting to sleep with them.” [20] Insults in poetic form is practiced throughout history, more often as entertainment rather than maliciousness.

Flyting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults between two parties, often conducted in verse and became public entertainment in Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries.

[23] More modern versions include poetry slam, dozens, diss song and battle rap.

Ethologist Desmond Morris, noting that "almost any action can operate as an Insult Signal if it is performed out of its appropriate context – at the wrong time or in the wrong place", classes such signals in ten "basic categories":[26] Elizabethans took great interest in such analyses, distinguishing out, for example, the "fleering frump ... when we give a mock with a scornful countenance as in some smiling sort looking aside or by drawing the lip awry, or shrinking up the nose".

Thus on one hand the insulting "obscene invitations of a man to a strange girl can be the spicy endearments of a husband to his wife".