nefarious - podictionary 811

Today’s podictionary word brought to you by GoToMeeting. Try it free for 30 days by following the link www.gotomeeting.com/podcast When I peer into the dictionaries they tell me that the word nefarious means “wicked” and “unlawful.” This may be true but it seems to me that nefarious is sometimes used in a lighter tone. I said to someone the other day that Google could use all the data that they are constantly gathering for nefarious purposes. By that I didn’t mean I expected Google to become some master criminal corporation, but rather that they could use it in sneaky ways that were to their advantage. The word nefarious appeared in English in writing 12 years before William Shakespeare died.  The work that nefarious appeared in is reputed to be the first monolingually English dictionary, written by a guy named Robert Cawdrey . The word came from Latin and back in Latin had been one of those words that got squished together...