Vocabulary

From time to time I am moved to post about French words which have caught my attention for one reason or another. See, for example, that at reference 1. Today, I am moved to post about the English word 'sarcasm'.

Not a word I am conscious of using myself very often, hearing it more often than using it. But I heard and absorbed the word without any pause or thought; the brain thought that all was well, that it understood what was being said. But then I heard it again the other day and I realised that I did not know what it meant at all. So this morning I get around to getting down the first of the two and a half volumes of the OED devoted to 'S'. Clearly a popular initial letter.

Where I find that sarcasm gets less than three column inches, rather less than I was expecting, with various more or less arcane or obsolete variations getting the best part of another column. But enough for me to learn that the sarco bit is ancient Greek for flesh and that the word as a whole originally meant tearing flesh, then shifted to gnashing of teeth. Then to any sharp, bitter or cutting expression, so a much vaguer meaning that I had been expecting, with saying something sarcastic probably saying more about the speaker's state of mind or intent, or his or her attitude towards something, than about the something itself. My guess is that the word would be used of a male speaker more often than of a female speaker, although any such difference is probably diminishing with the march of liberation.

A page or so later there is a rather longer entry for the prefix 'sarco-', used, it seems, in many scientific terms to do with flesh. Also in sarcophagus, a sort of stone which the ancient Greeks thought consumed dead bodies and was therefore eminently suitable for the manufacture of sarcophagi. With the suffix '-phagus', from the ancient Greek for eating, popping up all over the place.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/libational-cups.html.