Why do you want to insult infernal scoundrels like that? What did they ever do to you?
In the Australian House of Representatives last month, opposition member Julia Gillard interrupted a speech by the minister of health thusly: “I move that that sniveling grub over there be not further heard.”For that, the good woman was ordered removed from the House, if only for a day. She might have escaped that little time-out if she had responded to the speaker’s demand for an apology with something other than “If I have offended grubs, I withdraw unconditionally.”