'I do have scruples.'
'I'm sorry to hear that. Is it painful?'
Where are the gags of yesteryear? Sometimes I find myself longing for the days when comedy was simple and happy and...
...well, funny.
Still.
To have scruples is to have small but persistent doubts about the morality of a course of action.
As with Music Hall-style comedy, scruples have been washed away in a great modern flood. With Music Hall the deluge was made up of cinema and then TV (with their lack of a real-life audience to give performers instant, painful proof if they did things wrong); and with scruples it is social media.
Or asocial media, as it should perhaps be called.
The thing about scruples is that they involve working out a moral position which isn't the prevailing or obvious option - and, yes, the word death-wish does come to mind.
The Word Den, as a responsible organ, cannot recommend scruples as a safe means of expression.
But it has a deep nostalgia and respect for them, all the same.
Thing To Have Today: scruples. This word comes from the Latin scrūpulus, a small weight, from scrūpus, a rough stone.
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