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WOTD  
Word of the Day - for Toastmasters everywhere
Tuesday 13th February 2024
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omerta (noun) o-MER-ta



Mafia code of honour requiring silence about criminal activities.

Out of this feeling grew the "Omerta," which paralyzes the arm of justice both in Naples and Sicily. The late Marion Crawford thus summed up the Sicilian code of honor:

According to this code, a man who appeals to the law against his fellow man is not only a fool but a coward, and he who cannot take care of himself without the protection of the police is both .... It is reckoned as cowardly to betray an offender to justice, even though the offence be against one's
self, as it would be not to avenge an injury by violence. It is regarded as dastardly and contemptible in a wounded man to betray the name of his assailant, because if he recovers he must naturally expect to take vengeance himself. A rhymed Sicilian proverb sums up this principle, the supposed speaker being one who has been stabbed. "If I live, I will kill thee," it says; "if I die, I forgive thee!"

Arthur CheneyTrain, Courts and Criminals. Amazon

While it shocked many when Hodler broke Olympic omerta in 1998 to expose the corruption permeating the selection of Olympic host cities, it did not surprise many who knew him.

Michael Carson, The Guardian, 23 October 2006. Guardian

Footballers generally operate a law of omerta on such matters, and Zidane is a reluctant talker at the best of times, so we may never be really sure what Materazzi did or said that provoked him into one of the acts of retaliatory violence that have studded his otherwise brilliant passage through the game.

Richard Williams, The Guardian, 10 July 2006. Guardian

Yet another tax credit question, yet again the Chancellor takes the vow of omerta instead of responding in person.

Mark Francois, Hansard, 29 March 2007. Hansard




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