For the past few months, the United States and North Korea have engaged in a predictable behavior pattern. North Korea will conduct a missile launch or weapons test, the United States and President Trump will respond with a statement and then the Koreans respond to that statement. And then two weeks later we repeat the process. We're in the middle of one of those patterns now, but this time Americans received a little something extra in the form of a grammar lesson from Kim Jong-Un.
Kim Jong-Un, the leader of North Korea, made a statement yesterday in response to President Trump's comments about him made at the United Nations. While most of the speech was pretty boilerplate from past ones, he did spice this one up by calling Trump a "dotard."
If you think that Kim misspoke, you'd be wrong. Dotard is an actual english word meaning an old person who's becoming senile. You're not alone in not realizing "dotard" is an actual word. The New York Times says they've only used the word in their newspapers 10 times since 1980, which is crazy considering they put out a full paper every single day. The word also doesn't appear much in literature, though Herman Melville used the word in a poem about a shark and William Shakespeare included it in a line from Much Ado About Nothing.
Social media obviously had a field day with Kim calling Trump a dotard.
📈 Kim Jong Un calls Trump a mentally deranged U.S. dotard. Searches for 'dotard' are high as a kite. https://t.co/HztPoLSjXi
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) September 21, 2017
Donald Trump: "I have the best words, Rocket Man."
— Donald J. Trump ᵖᵃʳᵒᵈʸ (@BiglyPrez) September 22, 2017
Kim Jong-un: "Hold my covfefe, #dotard."
#dotard
— Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) September 22, 2017
do·tard (dōdərd) noun
A word you didn't previously know existed, but googled today and said, "Damn, that's pretty accurate."
It appears #Dotard brought a knife to a #RocketMan fight.
— J. Dice 🎲 (@jdice03) September 22, 2017
BTW I had to look up the taunt ‘dotard.’ I’ve been inside #KCNA’s newsroom. They’re using very old Korean-English dictionaries.
— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) September 22, 2017
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2017