The Mistaken Critic, or a Discourse on the Word (11-12)

But no! not yet. First about that ‘ nefandous.’

Tell me, in the name of Aphrodite Pandemus and the Genetyllides[*] and Cybebe, in what respect did you think the word nefandous objectionable and fit to be laughed at? Oh, because it did not belong to the Greeks, but had somehow thrust its way in among them from their intercourse with Celts or Thracians or Scyths; wherefore you—for you know everything that pertains to the Athenians—excluded it at once and banished it from the Greek world, and your laughter was because I committed a barbarism and used a foreign idiom and went beyond the Attic bounds!

“Come now, what else is as well established on Athenian soil as that word?” people would say who are better informed than you about such matters. It would be easier for you to prove Erechtheus and Cecrops foreigners and invaders of Attica, than to show that ‘ nefandous ’ is not at home and indigenous in Attica. There are many things which they designate in the same way as everybody else, but they, and they alone, designate as nefandous a day which is vile, abominable, inauspicious, useless, and like you.

There now! I have already taught you in passing what they mean by nefandous!

When official business is not transacted, introduction of lawsuits is not permissible, sacrifice of victims is not performed, and, in general, nothing is done that requires good omens, that day is nefandous.