the.com/banter
verbal tennis where the prize is affection disguised as merciless insults
means Playful, teasing exchange of remarks between people, usually good-natured and quick-witted.
from "Banter" surfaced in late 17th-century English as fashionable slang, and Jonathan Swift griped about it as a vulgar new coinage of the wits and city sharpers. Its deeper roots are genuinely unknown — no one has traced it convincingly to an older word, so it seems to have been street-level invention that stuck.
- viking roots
- Norse warriors traded ritual insults called flyting before fights
- class weapon
- British humor weaponizes self-deprecation to defuse status threats
- brain workout
- Quick wit recruits the same regions as improvisation
- bonding glue
- Friends insult each other more than strangers do
- timing rules
- A beat too late and it curdles into awkwardness
for instance
top gear presenters — clarkson, hammond, may spent 22 seasons ribbing each other on air
cricket commentary — india vs pakistan matches feature commentators trading humorous jabs since 1952