Despite its centrality to religiously aggravated hate crime recorded in England and Wales, the nature of the language used has been neglected in research. This paper, based on a unique dataset, aims to rectify this. It takes its approach from the field of linguistic impoliteness, a field that has yet to consider hate crime. Therein lies its second aim: To consider whether impoliteness notions can be usefully extended to the language of hate crime. In its data, the paper examines, in particular, conventionalized impoliteness formulae, insults, threats, incitement and taboo words. Whilst it reveals some linguistic support for the way religiously aggravated hate crime is framed in the law and discussed in the legal literature, it highlights areas of neglect and potential ambiguity. Regarding impoliteness, the paper demonstrates its effectiveness as an approach to these data, but it also highlights areas of neglect in that literature too, notably, non-conditional threats and incitement.