[Ads-l] kakistocracy

[Kelly Wright]

Thanks, Fred and Nancy!


These details were super useful and paralleled what I'd found since this
morning. I'm very grateful to have had extra examples to share.

I just finished speaking with them and made sure to credit you both!!


Yours,
K.

On Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 1:30 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for the word "kakistocracy"
> is dated 1829.  Here is a much earlier usage, probably as far back as can
> be found.  This is also a quite wonderful passage with a super-long
> sentence around the k-word.
>
> 1644 A sermon preached at the publique fast the ninth day of Aug. 1644 at
> St. Maries, Oxford, before the honorable members of the two Houses of
> Parliament (1674)
>
> Prayer is for, or against: if we be friends to the peace of Ierusalem, we
> must be enemies to the enemies of it; if we pray for that, we must pray
> against these. Now if God be the authour of peace, warre and discord can
> have no authour but Gods adversary the Devill; and they that are the
> stirrers up and fomenters of it, must needs be his instruments whosoever
> they be. If the peace-makers be blessed, for they shall be called the
> sonnes of God; then cursed are the warre-makers, cursed to the pit of hell,
> for they shall be called you know what: if there be any devils upon earth,
> these are they; as like their father, as if they had beene spit out of his
> mouth, who was a lyar, and a murderer from the beginning. Therefore we need
> not make any scruple of praying against such: against those Sanctimonious
> Incendiaries, who have fetched fire from
>
> ________________________________
> [View Image - Image 11 (page 18)]
> Image 11 (page 18)
> heaven to set their Country in combustion, have pretended Religion to
> raise and maintaine a most wicked rebellion: against those Nero's, who have
> ripped up the wombe of the mother that bare them, and wounded the breasts
> that gave them sucke: against those Cannibal's who feed upon the flesh and
> are drunke with the bloud of their own brethren: against those Catiline's
> who seeke their private ends in the publicke disturbance, and have set the
> Kingdome on fire to rost their owne egges: against those tempests of the
> State, those restlesse spirits who can no longer live, then be stickling
> and medling; who are stung with a perpetuall itch of changing and
> innovating, transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this
> againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad
> kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord! what wild irregular courses have these
> men runne, since the reines have layen loose upon them? I am afraid, they
> will never leave chopping and changing, plotting and practising, till in
> conclusion they bring all to confusion, all to an Anarchy or savage Ataxie,
> Prayer, Peace, Ierusalem, and all. Therefore it is no breach of charity to
> pray against these men. How long, Lord, how long holy and just shall our
> bloud and wrongs be
> ________________________________
> Page 19
>
> unreveng'd upon them? how long shall the Devill and his instruments have
> place and power to deface and defile thy Temples, to profane thy service,
> to persecute thy ministers, to pursue the life and honour of thine
> Anointed, and to seduce the silly people like sheepe to the slaughter? How
> long shall they blaspheme thy Name and Religion by making it an instrument
> of such hellish practises? How long Lord, how long holy and just?
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org