{"id":9767,"date":"2016-11-21T11:33:12","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T19:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9767"},"modified":"2019-12-24T07:59:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T15:59:35","slug":"word-of-the-day-kakistocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2016\/11\/21\/word-of-the-day-kakistocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Kakistocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:2784,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/jury.me\\\/blog\\\/2016\\\/11\\\/19\\\/kakistocracy&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20240913092557\\\/http:\\\/\\\/jury.me\\\/blog\\\/2016\\\/11\\\/19\\\/kakistocracy&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-05 01:30:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-05 16:34:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-07 21:25:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-07 21:25:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<dl>\n<dt>Kakistocracy n.\u00a0(kak\u00b7is\u00b7toc\u00b7ra\u00b7cy \/\u00a0k\u00e6k\u026as\u02c8t\u0251k\u0279\u0259si)<\/dt>\n<dd>Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p>More background, <a href=\"http:\/\/jury.me\/blog\/2016\/11\/19\/kakistocracy\" title=\"Jury.me: kakistocracy\">from Jury<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  The origins of kakistocracy are actually pretty neat. The term was first used around 1829 and was coined as an opposite to &#8220;aristocracy&#8221;. It comes from the Greek &#8220;<em>kakistos<\/em>&#8221; or &#8220;worst&#8221;, which is the superlative form of &#8220;<em>kakos<\/em>&#8221; or &#8220;bad&#8221;. Switch the &#8220;k&#8221; to a &#8220;c&#8221; and you have the root of modern words like &#8220;cacophony&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>  But here&#8217;s where it gets even more fun. &#8220;<em>Kakos<\/em>&#8221; is closely related to &#8220;<em>Caco<\/em>&#8221; or &#8220;defecate&#8221;. As we saw above, it&#8217;s essentially the same phonetic sounds and has similar modern words derived from it.<\/p>\n<p>  Today, you&#8217;ll find this in the Greek &#8220;<em>Kakke<\/em>&#8221; &#8220;human excrement&#8221;, Latin &#8220;<em>cacare<\/em>&#8220;, Irish &#8220;<em>caccaim<\/em>&#8220;, Serbo-Croatian &#8220;<em>kakati<\/em>&#8220;, Armenian &#8220;<em>k&#8217;akor<\/em>&#8220;, Old English &#8220;<em>cac-hus<\/em>&#8221; or &#8220;latrine&#8221;, Dutch &#8220;<em>kak<\/em>&#8220;, German &#8220;<em>Kacke<\/em>&#8220;,\u00a0and the school-yard favorite &#8220;<em>caca<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>  So in this trying time, remember the word &#8220;kakistocracy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>  Quite literally, government by the shittiest.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kakistocracy:\u00a0Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[6,14],"class_list":["post-9767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-humor","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}