“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Nonsense. The words you choose have the power to cause grievous injury to the emotions and self-esteem of others. But by learning to identify and avoid destructive forms of language—and constructively respond when others use them—you can become a more competent verbal communicator.

He is the most prejudiced, verbally aggressive, deceptive, and slanderous character ever to show up on television screens. He has been described as “a bundle of pure, unadulterated evil.” He’s South Park’s Eric Cartman—a boy plagued by greed, hatred, and an unquenchable thirst for power. Through hundreds of episodes, Cartman has tried to reignite the Civil War, feigned disability, tricked another boy into eating his own parents at a chili cook-off, and released an almost endless anti-Semitic verbal assault on his classmate Kyle.

Cartman’s terrible communication choices often have disastrous outcomes. His manipulation of and cruelty to others only occasionally nets him happiness, and he never learns from his mistakes. This makes him endearing in a strange way: his communicative failings make viewers feel good about their capacity to change and improve. So whether you love Cartman or loathe him, laugh at his offensive antics or recoil from them, he reveals an essential truth about the dark side of verbal communication: when you use prejudiced, aggressive, deceptive, or defamatory language, you sow the seeds of your own destruction.