The following article by Chris Tribble discusses the uses of words associated with good, bad & inappropriate in the (Manchester) Guardian Weekly.

The good, the bad and the inappropriate

When a chat show host caused a scandal in Britain recently by making offensive comments on a BBC radio programme, prime minister Gordon Brown condemned those involved for "clearly inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour", but he didn't actually say that it was wrong.

Is it the case that those in the public eye have become uncomfortable about making moral judgments, sheltering behind the neutral "unacceptable" rathe than saying that something is plain wicked or sinful?

A wordlist from the Guardian Weekly archive gives us some idea of how this paper deals with right and wrong. At first sight, there aren't that many negative judgments being made, with right (16,595) and good (16,471) coming at the top of the list, way above bad (5,605) and wrong (5,226). Evil (1,535) is even less frequently used, although it does come above appropriate (979), acceptable (742) and unacceptable (682). Inappropriate is at 311 and wicked at 206.

Of course, right is not only an antonym of wrong. In this paper it's most strongly associated with having a right (to vote, to life, to know, to roam etc) or being right or right wing.

Good is more often associated with news, thing, Friday and reason, than with any kind of doing good. We also find that bad is not strongly associated with moral judgments - it's the news, things, a week, luck or weather that are bad. Even wrong seems fairly blame-free - it most often collocates with place and direction or the idea of things going badly, horrible or seriously wrong.

Do we make any judgments then? The answer seems to be yes, but only when we want to distinguish between "them" and "us". So evil goes with empire, doers, regime, genius, dictator and axis, and appropriate goes with what authorities have to do in terms of action, response, measures and steps.

What of the two words that really ought to be sitting in the naughty corner? Inappropriate, I'm afraid, feels rather wishy-washy, collocating most frequently with behaviour, relationship, email, conduct. And wicked? Oh dear, wicked goes most frewuently with sens (of humour) and fairy - no great crimes there.