I think we all know what a scandal is, and it’s been in the English language pretty much forever. But there’s a subtly to it I had never picked up on, and which one of our friends was talking about this weekend.
When one goes back to the original Greek skandalizein, the meaning isn’t just “bad behavior, cause for offense,” it’s “to make one stumble.” So a scandal isn’t when one person goes astray…it’s when a person leads someone else astray. Though right there in the definition, I’ve never paused to realize that before. But it makes total sense, doesn’t it? Private sin can be terrible–but how much worse it gets when it becomes a public sin that leads others into it!
Hope everyone has a wonderful week! =)
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.