Employers say the vast majority of bullying incidents are verbal abuse, such as shouting, swearing and name-calling, along with malicious gossip, rumors and lies.

WSJ: Growing push to halt workplace bullying

Malicious gossip is far commoner: mean fictions that once would have circulated in a small group now spread across the world instantly through forwarded e-mails and newsgroups.

ECONOMIST: Gossip on the web

Another study conducted by Mr. Keltner and Cameron Anderson, a professor at the Haas School of Business, measured "Machiavellian" tendencies, such as the willingness to spread malicious gossip, in a group of sorority sisters.

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Mr Phillips preferred Stewart's Cafeteria in Greenwich Village, where you could get a good meal for 75 cents, a sound basis for hours of malicious gossip, or the conduct of love affairs, as well as for arguments about politics.

ECONOMIST: William Phillips | The

There was some malicious gossip that his papers demonstrated that he was more of a swot than an intellectual, but, nonetheless, it meant that Wilson was never likely to suffer from any inferiority complexes when it came to dealing with his chancellors.

ECONOMIST: Sometimes too many brains can go to your head