Scrabble?! MUDSLINGING

Definitions of MUDSLINGING in various dictionaries:

Negative campaigning or mudslinging is the process of deliberate spreading negative information about someone or something to worsen the public image of the described. Deliberate spreading of such information can be motivated either by honest desire of the campaigner to warn others against real dangers or deficiencies of the described, or by the campaigner's dishonest ideas on methods of winning in political, business or other spheres of competition against an honest rival. The public image of an entity can be defined as reputation, esteem, respect, acceptance of the entity's appearance, values and behaviour by the general public of a given territory and/or a social group, possibly within time limits. As target groups of public and their values differ, so negativity or positivity of a public image is relative: e.g. while in most societies having an honest source of income is a positive value and stealing is discouraged, in the world of professional thieves honest work is frowned upon and stealing is encouraged. In polygamous societies monogamy is not viewed in the way it is valued in monogamous societies. Values of a society also change with time: e.g. homosexuality in Western culture was considered immoral and was criminally prosecuted until the sexual revolution of the second half of the 20 century. Thus negative campaigning to be successful has to take into account current values of the group it addresses. The degree of strictness in practicing the group's values as opposed to its tolerance for violating the norms has also to be taken into consideration: e.g. while in the Old Testament and other traditional religious societies adultery and prostitution were outlawed and supposed to be punished by death, modern Western societies show much greater tolerance to these. In United States politics, negative campaigning has been called "as American as Mississippi mud" and "as American as apple pie". Some research suggests negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by the dynamics of a particular contest.