Wednesday, April 16, 2008

auto-da-fé -- no one expects the Portuguese Inquisition!


From Maureen Dowd's column in this morning's New York Times:


"Even though Democratic elders worry that the two candidates will terminally bloody each other, they each seem to be lighting their own autos-da-fé."


auto-da-fé noun (pl. autos-da-fé) [from the Portuguese auto-da-fé, meaning "act of faith"] the ceremony accompanying the pronouncement of judgment by the Inquisition and followed by the execution of a sentence by the secular authorities; broadly: the burning of a heretic

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