I just heard someone on MSNBC call Ann Coulter a “pundit.”
Well, I’m not sure. This caused me to take out my dictionary and look it up.
Pundit/pun-dit/noun 1 an expert who frequently gives opinions about a subject in public. 2 variant spelling of PANDIT. DERIVATIVES punditry, noun. ORIGIN from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘learned.’
Pandit (also pundit) noun a Hindu scholar learned in Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy and religion. ORIGIN from Sanskrit, ‘learned.’
Gee, that cleared it up, didn’t it?
Ann Coulter, a Hindu scholar–no that’s clearly wrong. Learned in Sanskrit and Hindu philo–that’s wrong, too.
‘Learned.’ She has a law degree from the University of Michigan, but does she opine on law? Exclusively? Maybe she sneaked in a degree in architecture giving her expertise in walls and such, although Wikipedia does not record this academic achievement.
I think we need to come up with a word or phrase other than “pundit,” something that could run as a chyron beneath the yammering heads, something that more accurately describes them.
A word that indicates they’re grabby aggressors into territory about which they know nothing.
Plundit?