the kind of office gossip that prompts you to watch your back

[…] early modern Catholic theologians needed to curb the tendency of overswearing in order to institutionalize and regulate the oath more firmly as a sacrament of power.

Calouste Gulbenkian

Say that the Cherubs carved in stone, / … / Used to sing in heavenly tone, / Above and round the sacred places / They guard, with wingèd baby-faces.