SOME words and phrases really make me steam like a long-forgotten kettle.

"Low-level crime", for example, and "antisocial behaviour". "Joy-riding" is another.

Where's the "joy" exactly in some oik nicking your car, careering round the streets in it, then smashing it into a lamp-post and running off without a care in the world?

Probably the most ridiculous amalgamation of two little words is "happy slapping".

Why, it even featured on the front page of this very newspaper only the other day. There, in big bold type, was the headline, "Horrific happy slapping attack", with the news, in a slightly smaller sub-heading, "Victim remains brain-damaged".

This was the dispiritingly everyday tale of how Jordan Connolly was kicked in the head and body as he lay unconscious on the floor at Castlepoint shopping centre.

Note that word, unconscious. Not only could he not fight back, he couldn't even defend himself.

Yet still Stephen Logue, 18, from Bournemouth, continued to kick Mr Connolly as he lay motionless and covered in blood. Meanwhile, one of Logue's mates filmed the attack on his phone, and other youths laughed and jeered as the attack was carried out.

And where does the word "happy" fit into this scenario? Answers on a postcard, please, probably in green ink.

Are we supposed to think that if we dress unacceptable acts up in totally inappropriate language, then somehow everything will be all right?

What's next, I wonder. Merry murder? Amiable arson? Kindly kidnapping followed by benevolent beheading?

Think of those three little words, "hit and run", and then think about what they actually signify.

How many times recently has this paper reported on the fact that someone has been mown down by a car, and then left lying there as the driver speeds off into the distance? I'll tell you how many - too many.

For all these idiots care, their victims could be dying or already dead. Are humans now an acceptable form of road-kill, like badgers and foxes, to be shovelled out of the way to the side of the highway?

I blame the Americans, with their "friendly fire", twisted words from warped minds, the kind of nonsense that not even George Orwell could have dreamed up.

If you devalue the language, you devalue life.

A young man kicking a defenceless victim, cheered on by his mates, is far too serious to be called happy slapping. It's a Clockwork Orange nightmare, dressed up with Dr Strangelove jargon.

But then again the judge, sentencing Logue to three years and four months detention, came up with another phrase that sets my teeth on edge - yes, our old friend, "mindless violence".

Sorry, but when Logue was putting the boot in, even though he'd been indulging in booze and dope, I reckon he knew very well what he was doing.