Entertaining cruelty ...

... Book Review: Gossip - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dignifying the dish, Mr. Epstein does define many facets of the indefinable. Gossip enforces a community's norms. Gossip satisfies the ambition to be an insider. Gossip implies a judgment. Gossip is "a species of truth, deliverable in no other way than by word of mouth, personal letter, diaries and journals published posthumously and not obtainable otherwise." Gossip is like receiving stolen goods, "it puts you in immediate collusion with the person conveying the gossip to you." Gossip is "fascinating speculation." "Unedited information." It fills the discrepancy between appearance and reality. "Gossip is two or more people telling things about a third that the latter would prefer not be known."