Etymology Word of the Week – As some of you know, in addition to working in the Admissions Office, I also teach Latin at Saint Ignatius and am something of a "word nerd." Thus, each week, I’ll sneak a vocabulary word (sometimes derived from Latin, sometimes not) into the e-blast. Here then is this week’s edition of the Etymology Word of the Week.
Blasphemy
Definition: “Impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.”
Origin/Derivation: From the Greek blasphemein meaning “to speak ill or evil of.” The first element of the word is uncertain but perhaps related to blaptikos meaning “hurtful”; the second element is from the Greek pheme meaning “utterance.”
Related Words/Phrases: euphemism (a nicer way of saying something, such as “landfill” instead of “garbage dump”); not much else here other than some obscure words
Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul” - seen here in The Blues Brothers telling her husband (Matt “Guitar” Murphy) to think about it before quitting his job to rejoin the band. A few moments earlier, she had warned Jake and Elwood about blaspheming in her restaurant.