Nothing to Apologize For

In the interest of not allowing the forest to be lost for the trees, this etymology lesson might be useful...


Holocaust - according to the Webster's English Dictionary - was not a word created in 1939. Or 1945.

Holocaust is a word that has often been used to properly describe the aftereffects of a thermonuclear weapon exchange between two or more countries by hundreds, if not millions of people.

Holocaust is a word from the Middle English form of a Old French word which in turn is from the Latin form of the 13th Century Greek word holokauston (give me a moment to catch my breath) meaning "to burn", or more often, "a thorough destruction".

An appropriate word in either case to be used not only for a war carried out with an unimaginable level of insanity, but a policy of genocide carried out during another war by an insane man lifted up to a level of power by a temporarily (or otherwise) insane group of people.

All that said, the word "holocaust" is not a proper noun reserved for one moment in history, nor is it reserved for a moment that will end history. It's overuse, I will admit, could - and likely does - cheapen the historical moment most often associated with it.

The following extremely minor usage is not one of those times:



In fact, I would agree that what the entire Republican (and a significant minority of the Democratic) Party seems hell-bent on protecting is beginning to look like a concerted and quite thorough destruction effort aimed squarely at a majority of Americans.

Without regards to religiosity, ethnicity, etymology - or historical parallel...