Why “fustigator” is a great word
FUSTIGATOR — [Noun] One who administers harsh beatings or cudgel-like verbal criticism. From the verb fustigate, from Late Latin fustigare (to beat with a club, from Latin fustis, "club, cudgel") + the agent noun suffix -or. Unlike a critic, who may offer measured disapproval, or a castigator, who chastises with severity, the fustigator wields language as a bludgeon. It is the schoolmaster whose verbal lashings leave mental welts, the polemicist whose prose lands with the dull thud of a birch rod, or the relentless inner voice that batters without cease—a grim reminder that language, at its most vicious, seeks not to mend, but to break the spirit.