Perestroit the Way the Real Perestroiniks Do
Published: May 5, 1989
To the Editor:
William Safire's impeccable sense of usage seems to have failed him in his attempt to manipulate the current hot word from the Russian language, perestroika (''Gorby's Miscalculation,'' column, April 24).
In attempting to reconstruct the verb form of the word, Mr. Safire offers up the nonsensical ''perestroik.'' Alas, Russian is much more complicated than English when it comes to moving from a noun to a verb with the same prefix and root. The root of perestroika is ''stroi,'' to construct; the prefix ''pere'' usually means ''re-.'' ''Ka'' here is a feminine noun suffix with no meaning of its own. The pertinent verbal suffix is ''i,'' the verbal ending ''t.'' Thus, the proper Russian verb with the meaning Mr. Safire intends is perestroit, to reconstruct.
Incidentally, and along these lines, ''perestroinik'' (or perhaps ''perestroishik'') flows more smoothly than the awkward ''perestroikanik'' employed by Mr. Safire, and it passes the grammatical test of being ''one who reconstructs.'' GEORGE P. KENT Cambridge, Mass., April 24, 1989