Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 319. The word origin today is cynic
or the adjective cynical. Okay. If somebody wants a screenshot, do it right now. Let's get right to
it . If someone says a person is a cynic or that he or she is cynical, one is saying that person
thinks other people only care about their own interest and are not really sincere or honest.
Cynics tend to believe people mostly do things for selfish reasons. We have a second meaning
here. If someone is cynical about something, they tend to be negative and think something
cannot be successful. Okay. Let's continue. The word cynic and cynical derived from ancient
Greek " kynikos " meaning dog-like or like a dog. This word was given to cynics as an insult. Okay.
The first person who came up with the philosophy of cynics was and Antisthenes. " Okay. A pupil of
Socrates. So he was a follower of Socrates. The idea behind the philosophy was to live
in line ...and agreement with nature. Yeah. That sounds pretty good on the surface. They
rejected all desires of wealth, power and fame. Okay, A people that followed .... Antisthenes
was Diogenes. Okay. Many of these cynics lived on the streets like dogs. They were Shameless.
They did everything in the streets. Like making love, sleeping, going barefoot
etc. and now you can understand why people were started to refer to them like dogs because they
were they just thought of them as like being like animals. So all right. This is where it
came from. Let's continue. All right. And we got five examples to show just how it's used. Here's
the first one. He is such a cynic. He doesn't believe any celebrities or famous people you know,
really donate to charities because they want to do a good deed. So they're not just really doing it
to help people. At least that's what he believes. He believes they only do it to improve their own
social image. So if somebody has this point of view, you could say they are cynic or they
are cynical. But let's continue. Number two. He has such a cynical view of the world , he
never believes anyone does anything just to be a good person or a nice person. They must have an
ulterior motive. They must have an extra motive or another reason for doing it. All right. Number
three. All right here's the one about you know, just being negative about a situation and you know
thinking that it cannot succeed. Don't be such a cynic. You need to be more positive and believe
it has a chance to work. Okay. Number four. After many broken hearts she has become cynical about
all relationships. Yeah. We could hear this all the time. You had like many disappointments and
then you get the attitude like oh forget it no relationships work out. They're all problems.
They're all. Yeah. So, so in this sense a person could become cynical about something. All right.
Number five here. Although sometimes thought of as negative sometimes people say many cynics are
just realists. Well, this could be going back to almost the first example here . Even though you
are being negative and I'm sure some celebrities really do give donations because they really want
to help the world. But you know, they may have a point some. Maybe some celebrities really aren't
doing it ... that's not their first priority. Their first priority is really creating a better
social image. So sometimes, you could almost say a cynic is a little bit of a realist too, on a you
know, on a positive side. But of course it also has the connotation of being negative. Okay. Anyway
I hope you got it. I hope it is clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.