Pardon me, your slip is showing

I have been contemplating two different topics as posts this week, one on Latin, and one on current politics involving Mexico and the U.S.

In an interesting twist of irony, I stumbled upon this news article this morning. And no, I don't lounge around and read various city newspapers, this came to me through a hs e-mail list.

Bill Would Mandate Nicer Term for Illegals

Florida State Senator Frederica Wilson wants to ban the term "illegal alien" from the state's official documents. "I personally find the word 'alien' offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children," said Sen. Wilson, D-Miami. "An alien to me is someone from out of space."

Okay. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I immediately thought "alien" was probably not a word first associated with little green men from Mars. I pulled out our school dictionary, which I specifically chose because of its inclusion of word origin. (By the way, it's called "Dictionary for Students" and my guess is that it's aimed at middle schoolers.)

The word "alien" is derived from the Latin "alienus," meaning "strange" or "stranger."

"Strange" comes from the Old French word "estrange," meaning "foreign." "Estrange" goes back to the Latin word "extraneus," meaning "external" or "foreign."

I admire people who twist word meaning to suit their purpose. Unfortunately, I think Senator Wilson is in the Ignorant Camp. Why do I continue to assume, to hope that politicians are a little brighter than this? If they can't be smarter than me, why can't they at least have one staffer that might be?