Words "So Indefinite, Ambiguous and Incertain" That They Aren't Treated as Slanderous

This is a familiar principle in modern defamation law: Some words, however pejorative, are treated as too general to be the sorts of factual allegations that can count as defamation. I just came across the same principle in Marshall v. Addison (Md. Provincial Ct. 1773), and thought it formed a good illustration of how long Anglo-American law has been dealing with these questions:

THIS was an action of Slander. The declaration contained three counts. The first and second counts, for saying the plaintiff was “a rogue and villain, and that he had ruined many families, and the curses of the widows and children were on him,” &c. “that he had wronged the defendant’s father’s estate, and cheated the defendant’s brother Thomas.” …

There are three heads under which the law may be divided with respect to actions of this nature.

1st. Words are actionable which charge a person with any offence which would subject him to corporal punishment.

2d. Words are actionable spoken of a person in his trade or profession, which would not be so if spoken of other persons, from a jealousy the law entertains, founded on public utility, in their favour.

3d. Words are actionable, which otherwise would not be so, if they have occasioned any special or particular damage to the party.

Rogue or villain are so indefinite, ambiguous and incertain, that they are always deemed words of heat, and not subjecting the person to any particular penalty; no action will lie. Cheat is equally so; for like rogue, a man may cheat in a thousand different ways without being subject to any action—as by charging goods at a greater price than agreed on—turning tobacco into money, and so again in tobacco—not allowing one man the general current prices for his tobacco, which are allowed to others. All these are cheats, and yet not punishable by corporal penalty….

Note that it’s not clear that, at the time, the same rule would apply to libel (i.e., written rather than oral defamation): It may be that such pejoratives would have been actionable if written. Today, generally speaking, statements that are viewed as general expressions of condemnation, without a relatively concrete factual allegation behind them, wouldn’t be actionable regardless of whether they were written or oral. (Of course, much depends on whether, in context, those words are seen as alluding to some specific misconduct.)

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