Defamation, as mentioned above, comes in two flavors: libel and slander. Many people have a hard time remembering the difference. It’s actually very easy:

Libel is written defamation. Slander is oral defamation. Libel begins with an L, as does literary. Slander begins with an S, as does spoken. So, libel is literary defamation. And slander is spoken defamation.

Got it?