What makes spitting so uniquely offensive?

[greatauntoftriplets]

Here's one in the eye

When Lazio's Sinisa Mihajlovic expelled a mouthful of phlegm towards the ear of Chelsea's Adrian Mutu on Tuesday night, he was delivering the most potent insult at his disposal. But what makes spitting so uniquely offensive? Esther Addley investigates

Thursday November 6, 2003
The Guardian

Here's a sticky conundrum to challenge the most sophisticated observer of modern manners. Which is worse: to kick an armoured boot, with some force, into the body of a grown man lying prone on the ground, or to spray a tiny amount of water in the side of his head? Is it more offensive to call a man's mother a streetwalker, or to accuse him of moistening your shirt with a small quantity of expectorate? Which is the more socially transgressive act: to stamp on top of a man in front of several thousand witnesses, or to expel a teaspoonful of saliva in his direction?
If you think the answer to any of the above questions is clear and unambiguous, you are clearly employed in one of the several governing bodies of the game of football - a field in which, happily, such brain-teasers are coughed up with satisfying frequency. The latest gelatinous dilemma to present itself, abruptly, at the authorities' feet is the case of Sinisa Mihajlovic, a footballer with the Italian club Lazio, who, on Tuesday was filmed, although not apprehended by the referee, spitting a small spray of stringy flob into the ear of the Chelsea player Adrian Mutu. Elsewhere in the game, and also unseen, he was witnessed kicking the unfortunate Mutu as he lay on the pitch following a tackle. Today Mihajlovic finds himself in quite some trouble, facing disciplinary action from Uefa and a lengthy ban, despite an appeal for clemency from the Chelsea striker. Was it the kicking that earned him the reprimand? No, it was the sputum.

And the spittle flies on. Last month, during an international match, the England captain David Beckham was involved in a similar dispute with the Turkish player Alpay. The England player alleges that his opposite number made a profane insult about his mother, but it was the suggestion that Beckham had spat on the player's Turkish badge that really got him riled. "I don't spit at people. As far as I'm concerned it's all over and done with, but if he keeps coming out saying things like that obviously I'm going to defend myself." Last year the Arsenal player Dennis Bergkamp was fined £5,000 for stamping on Blackburn's Nils-Eric Johanssen; three years earlier his teammate Patrick Vieira had been stung for £45,000 and banned for six matches for spitting.

What is it about the act of expelling a small ball of phlegm that gives it such a power to insult? Punching may hurt more, name-calling cause more personal upset, kicking cause longer-lasting damage - and yet spitting retains an offensiveness beyond them all, rivalling perhaps only the racist insult in its capacity to outrage. When the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright visited an Oxford bookshop last week she was greeted by around 100 protesters drumming and chanting throughout her signing session, an occupational hazard for a senior politician - and yet it was the bespectacled man who quietly approached her table and spat a mouthful of fake blood in front of her who succeeded in causing genuine offence. Peace protesters in Israel, a group which one imagines have similarly lost their capacity for shock, were appalled this week to witness television footage of a man who paused in front of the memorial to the assassinated Israeli president Yitzhak Rabin and spat on it three times. In this country, it is difficult to imagine a more visceral outrage than the two white men who were charged in May last year of spitting on the memorial stone erected to Stephen Lawrence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1078641,00.html

[mr_hat]

1. Dunno, but I love it when the guy who's spat upon >

hurls himself to the ground and writhes in agony.

Just part of what makes soccer the world's sport.

[greyl]

2. I think shitting on, pissing on, puking on, bleeding on...

have their own sort of uniqueness. Matter of fact, any bodily fluid causes unpleasant reactions as soon as it is outside of the body, eh?

Spitting does have the advantage of convenience though. :)

[LuLu550]

3. bodily fluids cause infection

spitting on someone shows you wish them harm, something you do on purpose. Usually, you don't accidently spit on someone. Plus, it is disgusting having someone else's bodily fluids on you. I would hate it if someone peed, pooped, vomited, etc. on me. It's just gross.