- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK by Dr. Parley Speake
COCONSPIRATOR: Dr. Saber S. Poder has already published a column on this problem, but as it continually pops up in the news, I have Saber's permission and encouragement to take another shot at it.
I tell my patients at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired simply to look at the word. What does the "co" prefix mean? You learned this in grade school, didn't you? Didn't you?
Just as "cooperate" means to operate together, coconspire means to conspire together. But wait. The "con" prefix in conspire means together, too. It makes conjoined a redundancy, as well as coconspirator. So what does "spire together" mean? Literally, breathe together, but we use it to mean plot together. You can't be a lone conspirator. Well, maybe if you have multiple personalities that get along with each other.
So a coconspirator is one who plots together together. With someone else. In concert. Cooperatively.
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