“Dotard”, “frightened dog” and “mad man” topped on Friday a long list of insults between Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, sending Twitter abuzz to find the exact meaning of the medieval word Pyongyang used to describe the US President.
After calling him a “frightened dog” and a “mentally deranged US dotard”, Mr Trump entered the mudslinging match tweeting that Jong-un is “a madman” who “will be tested like never before.”
But it was the word “dotard” that North Korea’s state news agency KCNA used in translating the leader’s speech that unleashed a Twitter storm, and got everybody looking for a definition.
Merriam Webster dictionary tweeted “Kim Jong Un calls Trump a mentally deranged U.S. dotard. Searches for 'dotard’ are high as a kite.”
📈 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
Webster coined it as a 14th century word that refers to “a person in his or her dotage”. Dotage is a “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.”
Google traffic and Twitter hashtags showed a spike -probably unseen since Medieval times- in use of word “dotard”.
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Read more:
[ North Korea threatens nuclear detonation in Pacific ]
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The Washington Post reported that "Dotard" was used by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales and "appeared numerous times in William Shakespeare's work, including The Merchant of Venice and King Lear."
But in the age of Donald Trump, his opponents on Twitter wasted no time in hashtagging and circulating the insult.
One user joked dotard will be the trigger for World War Three:
“To My Kids:
WWI: Started with the Shot heard around the World
WW2: Started when Germany invaded Poland
WW3: Started with #dotard”
To My Kids:
— Franco Harris (@itsfrancoharris) September 22, 2017
WWI: Started with the "Shot heard around the World"
WW2: Started when Germany invaded Poland
WW3: Started with #dotard
The comedy show Funny or Die came up with its own definition of dotard:
do·tard (dōdərd) noun
A word you didn’t previously know existed, but googled today and said, “Damn, that’s pretty accurate.”
#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."
Many anti-Trump users had a field day highlighting that the US President’s twitter account is now the first that comes up in the search box when looking up “dotard”.
Mr Trump is known for ascribing catchy insults to his political opponents in the campaign. He still calls Hillary Clinton “crooked”, referred to Ted Cruz “lying Ted” and to Marco Rubio “little Marco”.
