>At 11:31 AM 7/1/2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>Any etmyology experts on this list? Some hyper-PC dude on the WBAI
>>producers' list claims that "terrorist" comes from the same root as
>>"terrestrial" - because terrorist = dirt. Dictionaries do not
>>confirm this, but...
>
>
>wow. what an asshole.
>
>http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism
>move on to the origins of "terror" here:
>http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terror
Yup to the epithet. I tried similar things to that (Mac Tiger comes with the Oxford American Dictionary, which has the same etymology), but he swore, based on "7 years of studying Greek & Latin," that if you go further back, they have a common root.
Doug