Chrysti The Wordsmith: Cast Aspersions

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. If you make false and damaging imputations against someone you might be accused of casting aspersions. This expression has been a part of our language since the seventeen hundreds. What exactly is an aspersion anyway. The progenitor of this term is the Latin based verb asperse a s p e r s e a term rarely heard today which means to sprinkle or spatter usually with water originally aspersion was a type of Roman Catholic baptism in which congregants were dashed with holy water from an aspirin. A type of sprinkling brush. When the word aspersion entered the English language in the 15th century it had the positive connotation of purification. In Shakespeare's 16:11 play The Tempest the Bard writes of sweet aspersions that fall from the heavens but the word took a turn for the dirty in the mid sixteen hundred one aspersion became less a sprinkling a purification and more a spattering of

accusations intended to sully our reputation in 1749. Henry Fielding author of Tom Jones wrote I defy all the world to cast a just aspersion on my character today. The expression to cast aspersions literally means to fling dirty sprinklings of defamation on someone. I'm Christi the wordsmith. Good day of herbivores Christie the wordsmith a sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry sued web dot com.