‘When you are sarcastic to someone, you are metaphorically and etymologically, ripping the flesh from their bodies. ‘

Posted on 2011/11/07 , tagged as

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The Etymologicon author Mark Forsyth writes on the Foyles blog today about bibliophiles, bibliomania and bibliophagists … and what they all have to be with sarcasm.

‘A bibliophagist is a devourer of books,’ he writes. ‘It comes from Greek root phagein which meant eat.’

‘If you put the Greek anthropos, or man, in front of phagous you get a man-eater. Othello wooed Desdemona by telling her all about:

…of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.’

‘Which, if you think about it, is a strange way of wooing a girl – I fear I may have been getting it wrong all these years.’

Read the whole post here and you can order you copy from Foyles here – or of course in one of their lovely shops in London or Bristol.