"My go-to theologians do not agree with me on this, but I maintain that the insult is a commendable work of charity. To the extent that you define a dangerous fellow accurately, you forewarn those who will interact with him of what awaits them. Saying that a thief is “not an entirely honorable person” leaves the thief unpunished and his victims helpless. Gee, I suspect I won’t get the Best Catholic Journalist award this year either.
"Insulting is good for your health. It improves your complexion, aids digestion, and improves your eyesight; there comes a time when you can see an asshole coming from a hundred miles away. But insulting also improves circulation. When you’re in front of an idiot in action and you don’t externalize it in some way, the “idiot” stays inside you, nests, and could give rise to a bloodstream full of stupid cells. It’s my own theory, but I am convinced that if I attribute it to some Himalayan shaman it will seem more plausible to you.
"And more than about being rude it is all about being precise. Spanish from Spain — forgive me — is perhaps the richest language in terms of the nuances of its insults. At last we are world champions in something! On my desk sits a thick volume entitled El gran libro de los insultos (“The Great Book of Insults”), with thousands of offensive slurs for all kinds of people and situations. It’s 1,152 pages full of centuries’ worth of abuse and outbursts. Heaven, for any columnist. Most of them are of local usage, only comprehensible in certain regions, but if you study their history you discover an exciting world chockablock full of rich nuances. Some of the insults in this dictionary are breathtakingly beautiful; unfortunately, most are impossible to translate into English, because most of them are barely understandable in Spanish." . . .
