This verse is another example of play with words and idioms. The first line contains an amusing and attractive pair of nouns-- opposites that are separated by only a letter. Those who show are accused of . It's a very convenient slippage that involves replacing only one letter, so the Others can readily engage in saying that something is really its opposite. The second line begins with the soothing truism-marker, something like 'it's been going on for ages' or 'it's come down to us' or 'by longstanding custom'. And indeed we learn that the longstanding custom is that 'they' vilify or abuse certain people. The idiomatic expression is a stylized one (see the definition above). But of course, the people who are vilified are 'good ones'. And this at once revitalizes the expression in its literal meaning, 'to say/call bad'. Thus the second line plays on one set of opposites, just as the first line plays on another set. The first line can now be seen as a specific case; and the second line is revealed as the general principle illustrated or proved by it. And of course the verse is a lovely mushairah one, offering witty and quickly-grasped pleasures, and withholding the final, clinching idiom until the last minute. graphics/goodbad.jpg