Jonathan Nash

Stuart has fallen into my clever trap like a strolling tiger with other things on its mind.

In fact, I have never put forward this clearly fallacious argument.

As all know, it is the fluidity of a language that keeps it alive, so change comes from people, and people are extraordinarily good at making up new expressions of displeasure. Swearing is often richly inventive, with accomplished powers of metaphor.

To my mind, someone swearing properly is not only valving anger, but taking a joy from being imaginatively offensive. True, swearing can be unpleasantly violent, but then that's abuse, and something totally different.

Look at Stuart's compound expletives, for example. There's none of the inspired analogy of, say, Viz, but there's a simple cleverness in the conjoinings that makes them special. Whether they're qualitatively greater than "Oh my sainted aunt" is another thing altogether, but there you go.