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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The Renaissance philosopher/diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli circulated a manuscript called The Prince. In his compostion he licensed rulers to use utilitarian means to operate the machinery of state, even when the means contradicted the teachings of the church and popular morality. When the manuscript was published as a book after Machiavelli’s death and his utilitarian prescriptions became more widely known, moralists and religionists took issue with the book’s thesis. They painted Machiavelli as the incarnation of evil, his book as the instrument of the devil. The Anglicized form of his name, “Machiavel,†became a synonym for a schemer. The adjective “Machiavellian†was applied to situations characterized by trickery and deceit. Machiavelli’s given name, some language scholars posit, gave rise to “Old Nick,†an English name for the devil.
More than a half century after Machiavelli’s book appeared, Christopher Marlowe published his English play The Jew of Malta, which opens with a soliloquy by a character called “Machevil,†a stand-in for the maligned philosopher. Machevil argues in the prologue that religion is a “childish toy.†Presumably Marlowe fused “Machiavelli†with the English word “evil†to come up with the name of his narrator.
Evil and the name of Machiavelli are still pub buddies. On more than a hundred web sites the name “Machiavelli†is spelled “Machievilli†and “Machevilli.†These could be nothing more than spelling errors, but I think I detect some eggcorn moments–the embedded “evil†is highly tendentious.
Three examples:
Forum post on a writing site: “The entire thing is a perfect example of Machievilli politics at its finest. However, as deplorable as it is….â€
Post on a political discussion site: “ Machievilli remarked that the prince will make fewer, and less powerful, enemies by expropriating all the land from one subject rather than by expropriating a tenth of the land from ten subjects.â€
Rabbinic commentary at a synagogue web site: “It helps balance the lopsided pessimism and cynicism of Thrasymachus, Machievilli, Nietzsche and Hobbes.â€
Last edited by kem (2009-09-17 11:30:21)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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