Kim launches insult; dictionaries are cracked
‘Dotard’ rockets from obscurity in the North Korean leader’s war of words with Trump.
President Trump fired off “Rocket Man.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the target of that verbal missile launch, shot back a flurry of taunts, calling America’s leader “a rogue,” “a frightened dog,” a “gangster fond of playing with fire.”
But it was one word that lighted up social media, sent countless masses thumbing through dictionaries (or the online equivalent), one word that turned the back-andforth between the brinksmen into a teachable moment: “dotard.”
“Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history … we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history,” Kim said Thursday in a rare firstperson response to Trump’s belligerent remarks this week at the United Nations.
“Action,” Kim went on, “is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.”
Dotard, as many were to learn per Merriam-Webster, means “a person in his or her dotage,” which is “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.” The pronunciation is DOE-terd.
It was fashionable centuries ago, turning up in Chaucer — “olde dotard shrewe” — and Shakespeare — “I speak not like a dotard nor a fool.” The word, rooted in Middle English, quickly gained new currency, lofted by Kim’s ballistic rejoinder.
“Kim Jong Un calls Trump a mentally deranged U.S. dotard,” Merriam-Webster said on Twitter. “Searches for ‘dotard’ high as a kite.”
Puzzlement quickly gave way to partisanship, as Trump foes delightedly seized on the insult.
“Republicans are angry that liberals are using the word ‘dotard’ to describe 45. Duh! Why wouldn’t we as it’s the perfect word to use!” wrote @Crazyginny on Twitter.
Which, naturally, resulted in a flurry of Trump supporters returning fire.
“Even when I hated what Obama was doing to our country, I NEVER sided with the enemy. Leftist have no integrity, respect, or sense #Dotard,” tweeted @brandongroeny.
The president, inevitably, weighed in Friday morning with a tweet of his own: “Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!”
The Korean equivalent of dotard is “neukdari,” a derogatory term for an old person. One possible explanation for Kim’s antiquated insult, as rendered by the official translation, came from Jean H. Lee, who covered North Korea for the Associated Press. She tweeted that she had visited the offices of the government’s propaganda arm, the North Korean state news service, and “found the agency using very old Korean-English dictionaries for their translations.”
All of which briefly diverted attention from the existential threat of a series of schoolyard slanders escalating into nuclear war and a holocaust that could obliterate much of mankind.
Covfefe, anyone?