Source: Napolitano to name a 'border czar'

[Guest NewsBot]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is naming a "border czar" to oversee issues related to drug-cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the hundreds of thousands of people who try to enter the U.S. illegally through the Southwest....

 

By EILEEN SULLIVAN

 

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[ImWithStupid]

I wonder when they are going to name the Czar Czar to specifically oversee all the other Czars?

 

And no, this isn't an attack on anyone. The whole Czar thing has been stupid since the beginning.

[RoyalOrleans]

I wonder when they are going to name the Czar Czar to specifically oversee all the other Czars?

 

And no, this isn't an attack on anyone. The whole Czar thing has been stupid since the beginning.

 

1555, from Rus. tsar, from Old Slavic tsesari, from Gothic kaisar, from Gk. kaisar, from L. Caesar. First adopted by Russian emperor Ivan IV, 1547.

The spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii, 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual Ger. form is now zar; French adopted tsar during the 19th c. This also became frequent in English towards the end of that century, having been adopted by the Times newspaper as the most suitable English spelling. [OED]

The Gmc. form of the word also is the source of Finnish keisari, Estonian keisar. The transferred sense of "person with dictatorial powers" is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng., initially in ref. to President Andrew Johnson. The fem. czarina is 1717, from It. czarina, from Ger. Zarin, fem. of Zar "czar." The Rus. fem. is tsaritsa. His son is tsarevitch, his daughter is tsarevna.

 

Yes.

 

Stupid indeed.

 

I'm not in favor of addressing anyone, elected or appointed, with the title of a ruler/monarch. It goes against the very basis of our Constitution.