Word: verbalized
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Perfecting Verbal Abuse...
Reinhold Aman is the name in pejoration, not to mention invective, vituperation, obloquy, opprobrium, objurgation, abusive epithets and billingsgate. Aman, 41, is the editor of Maledicta, the International Journal of Verbal Aggression, which he publishes irregularly out of his home in Waukesha, Wis. He can curse in 200 languages and, with the possible exception of Don Rickles, he is the only American who makes a full-time living out of insults...
Aman has a tip for Americans wishing to improve their verbal-abuse techniques: "Look for a distinguishing characteristic. Each of us is deviant in some way. For instance, I wear glasses, I'm five-foot-seven, 20 pounds overweight, have short hair and a Kissinger accent. So you could start off calling me a fat, four-eyed, runty, reactionary, sewer-mouth Kraut." Still, he considers it unsporting, and sometimes destructive, for cursers to pick on physical characteristics. Says he: "Insults should be aimed at behavior, something a person can change...
...Such verbal snapshots form the documentation for Croce's broader, harder judgments, particularly on fads that have parasitically grown with the popularity of ballet. "Reviewing should function like a Food and Drug Administration," she notes, "even if that function is largely futile." What she calls "pop ballet" is a particular target: "Whole repertories (the Stuttgart Ballet) or parts of repertories (the Jeffrey, the Ailey) devoted to slick approximations of the higher article." In an essay called "Selling It," she has very harsh words for the American Ballet Theater, which she accuses of merchandising stars in shoddy productions while neglecting...
...sign of a good script. Guinness usually takes more complex roles, like the traitorous diplomat he is playing in Alan Bennett's current London hit, The Old Country. As Hilary, the high official of the Foreign Office who defects to Russia, Guinness plays a man who loves ironies and verbal puzzles. His own character is hidden, even to himself; "Hilary is Hilary watching Hilary watching Hilary," says his wife. Guinness delights in the role's subtleties, however, and his performance is brilliant throughout...