In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.

Some slurs like “slut” and “retard” vary in their perceived offensiveness to those polled, but also include some incredibly offensive words like the “N-word.”

As the Greeks gape at women heaped up in selfslaughter, / They hear of Aeneas's flight with the loot. Referencing events from the second act of Berlioz's Les Troyens.

All that time we've been searching for the answer, and it was right in front of our noses.