Transcript of a news program:
"For it did not merely serve to impune the morality..."

Did the commentator really mean impune? Or impugn?

Laughing. I hadn't known there was even a word impune, meaning "unpublished".

Probably an error not by the commentator, but by the transcriber.

From Webster's 1913 ...

.... Im*pune" (?), a. [L. impunis.] Unpunished. [R.]

Impunibly
Im*pu"ni*bly (?), adv. Without punishment; with impunity. [Obs.] J. Ellis.

Impunity
Im*pu"ni*ty (?), n. [L. impunitas, fr. impunis without punishment; pref. im- not + poena punishment: cf. F. impunité. See Pain.] Exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss.

Heaven, though slow to wrath, Is ne with impunity defied. Cowper.

The impunity and also the recompense. Holland.


We find nothing here about publish or not to publish.

Was the word "unpublished" the result of an error on the part of the reporter's report of the transcriber's transcription of the commentator's comment?

Should such errors committed by reporters, transcribers, and commentators be accepted with impunty ??

Laughing even harder at my own error. Thanks, Jerry.

Pulbishing is its own punishment. I think the verb uttered was probably impugn.