The question of the opaque accusation of "inappropriate" has reach a court. The lawyer of the person thus criticized, Mr Rush, asks how one can defend oneself from such an accusation. Do you say, "I don’t know what it was, but I didn't do it"?

Or do you say, "I don’t know what it was, but it wasn't wrong"?

This case illustrates the point that it is never legitimate to punish or rebuke someone on the grounds of "inappropriateness". For an accusation to be valid, it has to be concrete.

If we knew what Mr Rush was accused of doing, we might say it was wrong. Or we might not. At least we would have a question to think about.

But when the accusation says only "inappropriate", we have to reject it.