Word of the Week! Casuistry Richmond Writing

Word of the Week! Casuistry Richmond Writing Thanks once again to Robyn Bradshaw in UR Catering for this pick. At first blush, I suspected a back-formation and a modern word, but  The OED dates the word from the 18th Century for earliest recorded use by poet and wit Alexander Pope. The root is indeed cause but its a certain kind. As our dictionary also notes, a casuist is A theologian (or other person) who studies and resolves cases of conscience or doubtful questions regarding duty and conduct. Our word is not usually a positive one, as it is often associated with sophistry, or mere quibbling over causes in a way that obscures the truth. I suppose casuistry to be useful in our divided and money-haunted political system. Liars and thieves can then proceed with an untroubled conscience.   For some reason, the image of Lucy from Peanuts came to my mind. Shes an expert at the dark arts of casuistry and Charlie Brown? Her perfect patsy. As for a rule of style here? First, casuistry is not a back-formation, in the way that solicitate oozes from solicit. Bryan Garner makes it plain, in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, that back-formations merely add weight but no meaning to a sentence. Garner advises avoiding them as needless variations. On the other hand, he likes (as do I) some back-formations such as emote, from the noun emotion. Thus language gains nuance and variety. Second, watch your spelling. Note the position of the s in our word. I had it misspelled to match cause until I proofread this post! As we Charlie Browns of the world soldier on into the dog days of summer, please nominate a word or metaphor useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. See all of our Metaphors of the Month  here  and Words of the Week  here. Image courtesy of Caren Pilgrim at Flickr.