[lbo-talk] etymology

[andie nachgeborenen]

Why doesn't someone look things up in the OED? My
recollection from Catholic School Latin is that
"terror" comes from Latin, "terroram," fear or dread.
No relation to Latin "terra," "earth," which is not
"dirt." Btw, "terrorist" in the modern sense dates to
1947, especially in reference to Irgun tactics against
the British in Palestine. The first self-styled
terrorists -- they wore the epithet proudly -- were
Begin and Shamir. Though the Russian nihilists and the
Jacobins where also called terrorists. jks

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> snitsnat wrote:
> 
> >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
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>
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> 

		
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