we are all terrists posted in words, feb 11, 2008

i suspect that anyone who knows who george w bush is also knows that he’s not especially skilled when it comes to pronouncing words.  one of his mispronunciations i find entertaining is “terrists” which appears to be short for “terrorists.”

pretend with me for a moment that “terrists” is an actual word.  the fist part, terr-, often means ground or the earth.  the second part, -ist, means a person.  putting those parts together then makes a “terrist” a person who lives on the ground / on the earth.  this is of course everybody.

so when bush says he wants to stop the terrists he’s actually saying he wants to stop all of us.  hopefully that’s not what he actually means...