News

Can The GOP Candidates Check A Thesaurus, Please?

by Alex Gladu

Does anybody in the United States really want to hear Donald Trump talk about penetration? Viewers of the fifth GOP primary debate on Tuesday night got an earful when the GOP candidates would not stop using the word "penetrate" to talk about their proposed approaches to terrorism, particularly that threatened by ISIS. It was enough to make tweeters wonder why the candidates didn't have a better word to use for their purposes.

The p-word was most often used in the sense that the candidates think the U.S. needs to be able to penetrate ISIS' networks to find out who is planning attacks and how to stop them. The topic doesn't come as a surprise — the debate, which was hosted by CNN at The Venetian in Las Vegas — was intended to focus on national security, a topic that has been in the news nonstop thanks to tragic attacks in both Paris and San Bernardino, California, in recent weeks. It's the first time the candidates have battled it out on the primetime stage with so much attention on ISIS — and hopefully it's the last time the candidates battle it out to see who can use the word "penetrate" most often.

Dear candidates, next time you think it's a good idea to say "penetrate," please consult the list of synonyms below:

barge into

breach

break through

charge

crack

infest

infiltrate

insert ourselves

intrude

invade

make inroads

occupy

overrun

permeate

pervade

pierce

puncture