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Aug 17, 2012
This week's theme
Latin terms in English

This week's words
corpus delicti
ex officio
ne plus ultra
ex post facto
cui bono

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

cui bono

PRONUNCIATION:
(KWEE BOH-noh)

MEANING:
noun: To whose benefit?

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin, literally, to whose advantage? Earliest documented use: 1604.

NOTES:
Cui bono is the idea that the responsibility for an act can usually be determined by asking who stands to gain as a result of the act. It's first recorded in a speech by Cicero attributing it to the Roman consul Lucius Cassius. If he were speaking today he would say: Follow the money.

USAGE:
"Cui bono? Surprise, surprise, it's the banks."
Carol Hunt; Debt Would Be a Release Next to This Travesty; Irish Independent (Dublin, Ireland); Jan 29, 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The epitaph that I would write for history would say: I conceal nothing. It is not enough not to lie. One should strive not to lie in a negative sense by remaining silent. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

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