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Feb 09 2025

Malefits


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These kind of titles don’t really work well for a broader English-speaking audience who wasn’t forced to learn and study Latin between the age of 13 and 18. So, for those of you who are not Italian, this is a short excerpt on the etimology of the word benefit:

late 14c., benefet, “good or noble deed; helpful or friendly action,” also “a beneficial thing; advantage, profit,” from Anglo-French benfet (Old French bienfait), from Latin benefactum “good deed,” from bene facere, from bene “well” (see bene-) + facere “to do” (from PIE root *dhe- “to set, put”). In Latin, bad (as in contrast to good) is something like malus, hence my title joke of Malefits.

Cool, now that we have this out of the way, let’s talk about it once and for all so I can move on.

The Change