Ours is a wonderfully rich, supple and nuanced language. It permits us to communicate complex ideas and feelings, physical sensations, hopes, disappointments &mdash; the whole range of human experience.</p><p> It enables us to give names to objects around us, ones as near as a tree outside the window or as distant as the faintest star.</p><p> It can provide comfort in moments of desolation, encouragement in times of fear, an essential tool for cooperation when the collective welfare is at risk.</p><p> What the English language <em>cannot</em> do &mdash; at least what I cannot seem to find a way to make it do &mdash; is supply words adequate to describe the sort of two-legged beast that finds satisfaction in savaging beauty or destroying reminders of the cultural past.</p><p> Oh, some terms do come to mind, but they are of a crudity unsuitable for use in the public print.</p><p> One recent morning, residents of the city of Liberty woke to find that, during the night, a great deal of wanton damage had been visited on a local cemetery.</p><p> More than 170 headstones throughout the burial grounds had been pushed over, and many &mdash; some dating back almost two centuries &mdash; broken. Early estimates put the cost of restoration at $100,000 to $500,000.</p><p> No motive for the ruin could be known. So what name do you put to the sort of individual or gang that would get enjoyment from such a rampage?</p><p> &ldquo;Vandal&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t quite work. It&rsquo;s too cerebral.</p><p> Neither does &ldquo;barbarian,&rdquo; which can imply a human who has not had the benefit of exposure to civilization&rsquo;s influences, but who is not necessarily malicious.</p><p> The terms &ldquo;punk&rdquo; and &ldquo;scum&rdquo; and &ldquo;trash&rdquo; come a little closer to suggesting the offending type. But those are borrowed from the vernacular, and lack both intensity and specificity.</p><p> I can see the culprits quite plainly in my mind&rsquo;s eye.</p><p> They are weak-featured, disheveled, loudmouthed and stupefied by drink or crazed on dope. They smell bad, communicate in sneers and grunts, and, if young, are disgusting even to the hopeless parents who spawned them.</p><p> Seeing them, however, does not enable me to name them.</p><p> What&rsquo;s likely &mdash; I would almost say <em>certain </em>&mdash; is that, besides being not very bright, they probably are braggarts.</p><p> Sooner or later, and one hopes sooner, they will find it necessary to crow a bit about this thing they&rsquo;ve done. They&rsquo;ll tell some scabrous pal of theirs. And that friend, also an oafish third-rater, will be so puffed up about being in on the secret that he, too, will have to share.</p><p> It&rsquo;s what rats do. They rat.</p><p> The jig, as they say, will be up. The mug shots of the grave wreckers will appear on TV and in the newspaper. The wheels of justice will grind.</p><p> And I&rsquo;ll be relieved then of my frustration with this slight inadequacy of language. I&rsquo;ll know exactly what to call them.</p><p> The proper word will be <strong>jailbirds</strong>.