GOSSIP
“Gossip” is defined as informal talk or stories about other
people‘s private lives, that may be unkind or not true.
Some of its synonyms are : tattle, tittle-tattle, idle talk,
hearsay, smear campaign, whispering campaign and mud-slinging.
There are lots of people who love
gossip because besides venom it has an element of good humour and entertainment.
Newspapers have gossip columnists who
write gossip columns which are liked by a large number of readers as entertainment.
A
person who talks eagerly about other people is called a gossiper. Women who
talk too much are humourously called chatty.
Gossip
is also classified as (a) positive gossip which leaves us feeling light,
informed and connected, and (b) negative gossip which we feel as a weight on our conscience.
The
English playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) who wrote his most famous comedy The School for Scandal said: There is a
set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder
character to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he
has years to know the value of it.
This writer also said: Tale bearers
are just as bad as tale makers.
According to the English
novelist and poet George Eliot (1819-1880): Narrow-minded and ignorant persons talk about
persons and not things; hence gossip is the bane and disgrace of so large a
portion of society.
She further says: As to
people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that any more than
the old church steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.
The American
historian George Bancroft (1800-1891) had
this to say: Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters
and lives of their neighbours for all their amusement.
Finally, this short but
realistic quote: Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.
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G.R.Kanwal
19 November 2024
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