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Reader question: Please explain “bad taste” in this sentence: Many journalists believe the question was in bad taste and should not have been asked. My comments: Some fellow asked the wrong question, in short. Bad taste suggests that the question made people, including many fellow journalists, uncomfortable. That’s what we can safely infer. I prefer being specific and more to the point. However, since we don’t have further context, I’ll refrain from aimless elaborations. We’ll make do, instead, with a few generalizations about “bad taste” itself. Literally, bad taste is the taste and aftertaste you have lingering in the mouth after eating something bad, such as a piece of rotten meat or a sip of green tea that’s gone bad. Figuratively speaking, if you do something is described as in bad taste, then something that is – as you can imagine – unpleasant, displeasing, discomforting and what have you. In our example, when a question is asked in bad taste, either the person who raises the question is tasteless, tastelessly inconsiderate, I mean, or he simply intends to hurt. For example, well, let’s go to real examples directly so that I don’t have to make up “bad taste” examples myself. When and if I some day write about “good taste”, which is the exact opposite of “bad taste”, I’ll make up some examples. That’ll be something more palatable – to my taste. | 
