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(This post's connection to flesh will become apparent in a moment). This summer, when I was at the Spelling Bee of China's North America Spelling Champion Challenge in California, I had the opportunity to give a short presentation. Cooper Komatsu, another speller who placed seventh at Scripps last year, also gave a presentation. When talking about his love of words, he mentioned the word "sarcasm" and how its etymology involves the phrase "to tear flesh like dogs." Since then, that has been one of my favorite etymologies, and, as it turns out, many words that share a root with "sarcasm" have interesting etymologies as well. All of the words I'm about to discuss share a common root: the Greek word sarx meaning flesh. The first one is "sarcasm." Sarx evolved into sarkazein, which means "to tear flesh like dogs." Since the caustic language often associated with sarcasm is usually figurative |
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