The starting point for this study is a reference to eristic dialectics according to Schopenhauer and the role attributed by him to ’insult’ as the ultimate stratagem in the discussion of ideas ; a stratagem which subsequently degenerates into verbal violence. Etymology is then invoked in order to restore to the insult its value of verbal sparring and attack against another. In A. Culioli’s enunciative theory, the insult is seen, along with other forms of exclamation, as a departure from the domain of validation and the intersubjective field of forces. This point of view is reprised in a theoretical development which, by means of topological schematisation, shows the place of the direct or interpellative insult, in its relationship to notions of subjective investment and intensity linked to affect. In the first section, three examples of discussions are brought to bear, in order to illustrate the way in which opposing opinions and antagonistic positions shift to become face-to-face confrontations, accompanied by an onslaught of insulting names which place the locutors-enunciators outside the discursive space of the discussion. To demonstrate the enunciative pragmatics of such a shift, a parliamentary debate is studied. It seeks to show how the insulting heckles which can arise during this kind of institutional debate in fact miscarrywhen they fail to hit their target through lack of a face-to-face encounter. A comparison with other forms of exclamation which are transgressive in nature, like swearing and blasphemy, puts the insult, with its specific characteristics, into perspective, beside other acts of malediction, as one of the exit routes from the game of co-enunciation.