Dotard!

The news lately is full of the word “dotard,” and all of the news sources feel compelled to add a definition.   As if everyone didn’t already know what dotard meant.  In the small fishing village whence I come, “Dotard” is constantly on every man’s lips.

Seriously, I’ve known it since I was eight or ten, on first looking into Chapman’s Homer The Lord of the Rings.  Who can ever forget the scene where Saurman says to Theoden, “Dotard!  What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs?”

You have to admire the wizard’s command of invective.  (I also admire his use of the word ‘but,” but that’s for another post.)

Still, Saruman should have been a bit more careful with what  he withdrew from his word-hoard since “dotard” shares with “wizard” the…