675: artifice and artifact Oct 13, 2016

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Irony is a surprisingly good motivator for language progression, which is why many words mean what they do now, though not what they did centuries or even decades ago (for more on this, see: 'nice'). While sometimes it can be confusing when one use, such as the academic sense of 'epithet' as simply 'adjective', means something other than the popular usage of that word, this problem may also be disarming in contrast with other related words. 'Artifact' is a word with which everyone is familiar, and quite reasonably it comes from the Latin 'arte factum' meaning 'made by art'. 'Artifice' on the other hand 5 or 6 centuries ago meant 'workmanship' but later took on the meaning of cunningly deceiving someone––even though it shares the same root as 'artifact'––due to people using the word exaggeratedly and ironically.


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