Words for thinking

Near the end of the list sits a desculpa, and the two languages build the same apology out of opposite materials. Desculpa is the noun behind desculpar, and that verb is des- plus culpa, the blame: to say desculpa is to ask for the fault to be taken off you. English owns the Latin culpa as well, but only at the cold end of the vocabulary — « culpable », « exculpate », « culprit » — and never at the moment of apologising. The word it apologises with is « excuse », from the Latin excusare, which is ex plus causa: not the blame but the charge, so the word means to take somebody out of the case. The third member of the set is « apology », which is not Latin at all but the Greek apologia, a speech made in one’s own defence. Three words, three pictures, and a courtroom behind all of them. After that, a desculpa drifts exactly as « excuse » does, from the apology to the pretext nobody believes: é sempre a mesma desculpa.