Volume 10, Number 8 · April 25, 1968
On Being Indicted
By Michael Ferber
Until I was indicted for it, I had thought a conspiracy was something sneaky, like dope-smugglers or price-fixers. Most people still think so, but that is because they have not been indicted for 'conspiring' to do something in broad daylight. Newly educated, I searched my etymological dictionary for proof, and found that a 'conspiracy' was originally a 'breathing together.' Two people who breathe the same air, it seems, or who are inspired by the same spirit, are 'conspirators' (or, in legal parlance, 'co-conspirators,' a word I could not find in any dictionary). Of that sort of conspiracy I joyfully confess I am a member (not card-carrying, however): something was blowing in the wind last summer and we breathed it in.
Feature, 1996 words
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