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February Word Builders

 

In Late January, The Washington Post published an article about the Doomsday Clock. It is now TWO minutes until Midnight.  In the article it sighted the tensions between the USA and North Korea, citing the puerile name calling by the countries’ leaders. The editors felt a need to define in the body of the article the meaning of one of the words used by Kim Jong Un to describe the US President. Sad that they felt that North Korea’s leader’s use of English was above that of the average US Newspaper reader.

to Quote the Article, because they said it so well:

Kim responded with an arcane insult, declaring in an unusually direct and angry statement published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” (Oxford defines dotard as “an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile.”)

http://www.ajc.com/news/doomsday-clock-moved-now-minutes-midnight/1JhWnMKF5AeYX408WmLvRP/

In that Washington Post was so amazed by the word they wrote an article on it detailing its history and recent rise in popularity.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/21/a-short-history-of-the-word-dotard-which-north-korea-called-trump/?utm_term=.d97f20ae727a

I would argue that the word was Arcane  ( Adj) – understood by few, mysterious or secret  ( per Google’s Dictionary).

oh – and my word  Puerile :(Adj) childish or silly, immature,   Can mean relating to childhood but I have seldom seen it used in that context.   Etymologically:  in Latin puer = boy

Other words of recent note in the post-Black Panther age

Afrofuturism – a blend of science fiction and fantasy into African culture – First use of word credited to Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future”  – and captured powerfully in Marvel’s Black Panther country of Wakanda.

http://www.ajc.com/entertainment/how-the-resurgence-afrofuturism-goes-beyond-black-panther/cWngUfLoui3o0BXGsHfn7I/

Diaspora-noun –  the dispersion a people from their native lands –  such as the diaspora of Venezuelans

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by | February 19, 2018 · 1:24 PM