Gossip-Mongers
Monger is an old English word meaning “dealer” or “trader”. It is never used, however, by itself, but only in combination with some other word ; for example, “ironmonger” (a dealer in iron), “fishmonger”, “cheese monger”. Gossip is idle talk, tittle-tattle, or groundless rumour. So a “gossip-monger” is one who deals in gossip; one who buys and sells, that is listens to and repeats, tales about others.
Now gossip may be quite innocent and harmless. There is no harm in talking about our neighbours, so long as our talk is kindly and we do not say things that are not true. But the word “gossip” has usually a bad meaning, and generally consists of tales, true or false, about others that are not at all to their credit. Many people have a taste for scandal, and itch to hear spicy stories about their neighbours. Such are the favourite customers of the gossip-monger, who goes round whispering the latest scandals of the village. To make the news still more spicy, the gossip-monger exaggerates and adds to the tale, till a simple mistake swells to a serious moral lapse. The hearers hold up their hands in shocked horror, but roll the slander under their tongues as a sweet morsel.
Gossip is not always malicious. The gossip-monger is often a kindly, respectable old woman with nothing to do, who likes to be a person of importance among her neighbours. She is full of curiosity and is fond of talking; so she finds her chief amusement in visiting her neighbours and chatting about other people. She repeats things she has heard, not with any idea of hurting anyone, but because she must talk and has nothing better to talk about. But “evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart”; and idle gossip of this kind, though not inspired by any bad feeling, may, and often does, great harm.
But much gossip, of course, is malicious, being inspired by spite, hate and a desire to hurt. The gossip-monger for some reason hates a neighbour, and wants to see her or him suffer. She uses her poisoned tongue to spread false rumours about the object of her spite. Or, it may be, hints and innuendoes are enough to poison peoples’ mind ;
“The shrug, the hum, the ha, those petty brands
That calumny doth use”.
Whispered sender is the coward’s weapon. The Bible has a good name for the malicious gossip-backbiter ; the mean cur that sneaks behind you and bites your heel. What homes have been wrecked, what lives ruined, what hearts broken, what wrongs done by the tongue of the slanderer! “The tongue (that) no man can tame; a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
