Glossary

If your little boy calls your neighbor a naughty name, you can spank the urchin, wash out his mouth with soap and water and not let him ride his bicycle for a week. That usually pacifies the neighbor. But if you run a newspaper and some cub reporter decorates a story with opprobrious epithets, either invented by himself or repeated after a third person, you are, if the epithets get published, responsible for their accuracy to the person described by them. If the injured one sues you, it will do you no good to discharge the cub reporter. You have a libel suit on your hands. You have to prove that he is, as the case may be, "an itchy old toad," "a tool of profiteers," "a damaged-goods chap." Following is a glossary, compiled last week by Editor and Publisher, of words and phrases each one of which has figured in a libel action won by the plaintiff:

Anarchist ; bankrupt ; blackleg ; black-sheep ; brainstorm ; briber ; crook ; crooked ; damaged-goods chap ; destitute ; extreme poverty.

Felon ; fraud ; frozen snake ; gambler ; henchman of a notorious character ; humbug ; hypocrite ; impending insanity ; impostor.

Infernal villain ; insane ; insolvent ; insulting to ladies; ironical praise (such as to call an attorney "an honest lawyer" when the opposite is implied) ; itchy old toad ; liar ; mere man of straw ; obituary of a living person.

Packing a jury ; pseudo scientist ; rascal ; rogue ; scoundrel ; slacker ; suicide fiend ; syphilis ; thief ; tool of profiteers ; unfit to be trusted with money ; and villain.