THE ART OF VERBAL WARFARE, by Rik Smits (Reaktion Books, $57.99 hb)
The old saw has it completely wrong. Sticks and stones will break our bones, but as Rik Smits’ brilliantly sweary new book The Art of Verbal Warfare explains, names – that is to say words – can certainly hurt us.
With language, any language, we can swear, curse, name call, intimidate, insult, misinform, disinform, cheat, ridicule, sexually harass, dehumanise and