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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Just ran across this in a news story, and (along with tears for Venezuela) it prompted a chuckle:
Thieves have broken into some of the vaults and coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments and sometimes items from corpses as the country sinks to new depths of deprivation.
(Not sure how to define “items†in this context, but anyhow …) One supposes the target was depravity, qualifying grave-robbery as depraved behavior, a judgment that not too many years ago would have been near universal. Yet the depravity is doubtless viewed as a result of deprivation, of the general scarcity of everything these days in Venezuela. Ever-deepening deprivation producing ever-deepening depravity.
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Cases where “deprivation†more clearly means “depravity†are out there:
they must adhere and respect to the norms of our society. New Zealand will probably sink into deprivation if there are no values.
Wickham must have exhibited signs of his deprivation among the militia.
The spelling depravation also occurs with that meaning, and is probably a legitimate formation for many (it seems it may have been relatively standard in the past):
I see more clearly the deep depravation that permeates the culture that says, ‘We are more connected then ever.’
Wherefore that man who premeditates the worst means at first must have by nature a deep depravation of heart; and such Macbeth will appear infected with
the alleged shepherds, deny the many warnings from Heaven through the Virgin Mary (3) when the world continues to sink into depravation.
And the malapropism goes the other way at times:
OMG the baby cried until 4AM, I was sleep depraved, I can’t even tell you the thoughts that crossed my mind, how to make her stop!
This is only one of the thousands of incidents that highlight the danger of sleep depravation. Insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic
To be depraved is to be deprived of decency. Perhaps there is an eggcornish connection by that route.
fwiw
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2019-07-08 08:40:27)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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