Kim’s Rejoinder to Trump’s Rocket Man: ‘Mentally Deranged U.S. Dotard’
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — Responding directly for the first time to President Trump’s threat at the United Nations to destroy nuclear-armed North Korea, its leader called Mr. Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” on Friday and vowed the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”

The rejoinder by the leader, Kim Jong-un, who is about half as old as Mr. Trump, 71, added to the lexicon of Mr. Kim’s choice of insults in the escalating bombast between the two.

“A frightened dog barks louder,” Mr. Kim said in a statement, referring to Mr. Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday in which he vowed to annihilate North Korea if the United States were forced to defend itself or its allies against it.

“He is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician,” Mr. Kim said.

His statement, carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Friday morning in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, was his first direct response to Mr. Trump’s speech.

Mr. Kim’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, who arrived in New York on Wednesday to attend the General Assembly, also called Mr. Trump “a dog barking.”

Asked by reporters in New York what Mr. Kim might have meant by the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure,” Mr. Ri said that only Mr. Kim would know, but that he thought the North might be considering the largest test of a hydrogen bomb ever in the Pacific Ocean, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Mr. Trump on Friday responded with some name-calling of his own. On Twitter, the president called Mr. Kim “obviously a madman.”

In his United Nations speech on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called North Korea’s autocracy a “band of criminals” and Mr. Kim a “Rocket Man” on “a suicide mission.”

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” he said.

Although Mr. Kim is often quoted by official North Korean news media, it is highly unusual for him to issue a statement in his name. In North Korea, the supreme leader’s statement carries a weight that surpasses any other formal document.

Mr. Kim, who has been accelerating his country’s development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles in defiance of the United Nations, Washington and its allies, said Mr. Trump’s remarks had convinced him that “the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.”

“Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy” North Korea, Mr. Kim said, “we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”

“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say,” he added. “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire.”

Mr. Kim did not elaborate other than to say his future actions would be “beyond” Mr. Trump’s expectation.

North Korea flight-tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July, the last of which demonstrated the potential of reaching the mainland United States. It has also fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan in recent weeks. On Sept. 3, the country detonated what it called a hydrogen bomb in its sixth and most powerful underground nuclear test.

North Korea has recently threatened to launch missiles in an “enveloping fire” in waters around Guam, an American territory and home to major United States military bases. Mr. Kim has also warned that his country would conduct more missiles tests in the Pacific.

李家同：金正恩用古字罵川普 全球拚命翻字典

北韓領導人金正恩和美國總統川普，近來不斷隔空互罵，讓朝鮮半島情勢更加緊張。清大榮譽講座教授李家同在臉書專欄「漏網新聞」中，道出一段插曲，講到金正恩日前罵川普，用了一個極罕見的英文古字，引起西方大批人士查字典。

李家同指出，金正恩用了一個14世紀的古字「dotard」，是「老糊塗」的意思。李家同推測，金正恩小時候曾在瑞士受教育，當然一定是一所貴族學校，所以所學的英文一定是文言文。「他用這些古字，顯然是在炫耀他的英文修養」。

紐約時報中文網9月25日有篇文章「金正恩罵川普『Dotard』，這到底是什麼意思？」還原事件始末。

這篇文章指出，川普總統上周二在聯合國大會上發表演講時揚言要「完全摧毀」朝鮮，並挪揄金正恩為「火箭人（Rocket Man）」。金正恩上周五反擊，管川普叫「mentally deranged U.S. dotard」（精神錯亂的美國老糊塗）。「dotard」（老糊塗）這個晦澀的侮辱性字眼，引發人們翻查字典。

紐時中文網引用韋氏詞典指出，「dotard」源於「dotage」，後者意為「一種以精神穩定和思維敏銳程度雙雙下降為標誌的老朽狀態或時期」。自1980年以來，這個詞只在紐時上出現過10次，且向來是在該報的文藝報導中現身。

這個詞也在莎士比亞作品中露過幾次面。「I speak not like a dotard nor a fool（我說話時既不像老糊塗，也不像傻子。出自「無事生非」一劇）；名著「白鯨記」作者梅爾維爾在一首關於鯊魚的詩也用過這個詞。

紐時中文網文章指出，曾任美聯社平壤分社社長的吉恩·H·李（Jean H. Lee）在Twitter上表示，曾到訪過朝鮮官方媒體朝中社（KCNA）辦公室，發現朝中社翻譯文稿時用的是非常老的朝英詞典。川普上周五回罵金正恩「顯然是一個不介意餓死或殺死本國人民的瘋子」。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/asia/kim-trump-rocketman-dotard.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20170922/kim-trump-rocketman-dotard/zh-hant/

Video：Kim Jong-un’s Approach: Missiles, Purges, Propaganda
Once dismissed as a figurehead, Kim Jong-un, at only 33, is emerging as a powerful leader and a nuclear threat.
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