Dan:

For your information --- the dictionary I use is from the late 1800's and is not the DUMBED DOWN version as posted online.

Check out the ORIGINAL DEFINITION --- as the version that is posted online represents the dictionary of a DUMBED DOWN citizenship.

For example --- just in the past SIXTY YEARS or so --- the meaning of TERRORISM has changed several times. The meaning of TERRORISM had been the same until after the Korean War --- when in the mid-1950's to the late-1960's the definition had suddenly changed.

The reason why? Because it had originally referred to TERRORISM committed by a government against its' own people.

Last year, I spent a great deal of time hunting the following information down, when my sister found a dictionary in her basement that was from the 1940's.

In the 1946 Funk and Wagnall's New Practical Standard Dictionary (unabridged), here is how TERRORISM was defined:

1) The act of terrorizing. 2) A system of government that seeks to rule by intimidation. 3) Violent and unlawful acts of violence committed in an organized attempt to overthrow a government.

Twenty years later, in 1966, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged) defined terrorism in the following way:

1) The use of terrorizing methods. 2) The state of fear and submission so produced. 3) A terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

In 1999, the Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary (unabridged) defined terrorism as thus:

Violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes.

By examining these three definitions above, you should have discovered the following:

01) TERRORISM used to signify three seperate ideas, which by 1999, came to mean ONE THING ONLY.

02) TERRORISM used to refer to the systematic intimidation by a government over its' own people.

03) As various governments of the world became more tyrannical, the meaning of this word changed to keep the focus on OUTSIDE THREATS. Today, the REAL TERRORISTS are the governments who oppress their people, and not fanatical religious fundementalists, as is usually protrayed in the establishment-controlled mass media.

It has been said that MIND CONTROL IS SOMETIMES LOOSELY DEFINED AS INFORMATION CONTROL. (Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips - Trance Formation of America, pg. 3)

This is why I use dictionaries / thesauruses from the late 1800's and early 1900's.

The educational system has been dumbed down --- and this is likely why you believe that the word CAPITOL is spelled CAPITAL. It didn't used to be spelled that way --- and since the Internet did not exist back then --- online dictionaries are largely a waste of time.

Here is another example of how DUMBED DOWN things have gotten:

Whenever you see the word "its" (the shortened form of it is) quite a number of times it is spelled "it's" (with the apostrophe between the T and the S) when it should be "its'" (with the apostrophe AFTER the S and NOT before). This mistake is made by even the GLOBAL NEWS MEDIA CORPORATIONS.

The manner in which language is handled these days --- things get into the DICTIONARY purely because of a words popular usage --- and NOT because it is necessarily correct.

In fact, the language by which you communicate Dan --- is NOT even ENGLISH, btw. It can only be correctly called American Contemporary Conversational Slang --- as much of what passes for conversational English in today's world has very little to do with the ORIGINAL ETMYOLOGY of the language and the words themselves.

Dan, stop arguing with me, because unless you are an ENGLISH MAJOR (which you are not) you largely sound like an uninformed NINCOMPOOP.

And THAT is as NICE as I can say it!

KDB = Buffalo, NY USA