A courtier, who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the blackamoor was a brute, and not a man.

'Thou hast reason,' replied a great Lord, 'according to Plato his saying; for this be a two-legged animal WITH feathers.' The fatal habit became universal.
The language was corrupted.

The infection spread to the national conscience.

Political double-dealings naturally grew out of verbal double meanings.

The teeth of the new dragon were sown by the Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equivocation.