JORAN & BUDS, & YOUR FAMILES...YOU ARE STUCK ON STUPID

WHERE AT ON THE BEACH JORAN. TELL US. WHERE IS SHE ?? OVER THERE, UNDER THAT,
IN THE CAVE. WHERE...YOU KNOW. SPEAK!


LOOK AT YOUR FACE.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!






HE'S A BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN COWBOY




YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. A LIAR. YOU BETTER GET ON YOUR HORSE AND RIDE RIDE RIDE. YOU WILL BE CAUGHT SOONER OR LATER. CAN'T WAIT FOR THE DAY.

STUPID PEOPLE.....

Differentiating between stupidities

Chances are you’ve been calling other people stupid since you first discovered the existence of insults. it’s a natural extension of “no” that most popular word among the learning to speak crowd. “no” is a way of asserting power. insults take it to the next level by essentially saying “no” to the totality of another human’s being. anyhow not long after such zingers as doody-head and jerk-face began losing their potency you most likely began indiscriminately tossing about two old favorites- idiot and moron. what’s more i’m willing to bet those two have managed to stay dog-eared in your lexicon to this day. all of which is simply to say you’ve been calling people idiots and morons for a loooong time.

Sure belittling the mental capacity of others is grand but do you ever think about the words you accomplish the task with?

I was thumbing through the latest issue of mental_floss magazine and came upon some specifics concerning these words which i thought id’ share with you, namely what the difference is between the two. quote:

In 1911, french psychologists alfred binet and theodore simon put the finishing touches on the first modern intelligence test, which calculated smarts based on weather children could accomplish tasks such as pointing to their noses and counting pennies. the concept of intelligence quotient and corresponding classification systems soon followed. any child with an i.q. above 70 was considered “normal” while kids with scores above 130 were considered “gifted.” to deal with children below 70, psychologists nomenclature of retardation. those with an i.q. between 51 and 50 were called “morons” and were categorized as having learning skills just good enough to complete menial tasks. “imbeciles” with an i.q. between 26 and 50, never progressed past a mental age of about 6. and the lowest were the “idiots,” those with an i.q. between 0 and 24, who were characterized by poor motor skills, extremely limited communication, and little response to most forms of stimuli.

Evidently this “moron/imbecile/idiot” classification system remained in place until the 1970’s when people realized that the developmentally disabled have enough troubles without being called hurtful names. today these particular insults are only suitable for slinging at everyone else.

Political correctness or no i think it’s safe to say that “idiot” and “moron” remain popular because calling other people stupid never goes out of style. does it? it seems almost a biological imperative practiced the world over. the list of synonymous insults for just this exact purpose, nimbly switched between for maximum effect by the more wordy of us, is long indeed:

Nouns: ass, blockhead, boob, cretin, dimwit, dork, dumb ox, dumbbell, dunce, dunderhead, fool, halfwit, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, jerk, meathead, mental defective, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, pinhead, simpleton, stupid, twit, yo-yo

Adjectives: brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, dodo, doltish, dopy, dotterel, dull, dumb, dummy, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, insensate, laughable, loser, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, pointless, puerile, senseless, simple, simple-minded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thickheaded, unintelligent, unthinking, witless… etc.

Those are just out of the stodgy ol’ thesaurus, not even accounting for the billion variations being spat in office places, war-zones, on subways, and in living rooms which have not been made “official” as of yet.

So where do all the rest of these come from? well, i can’t possibly track down the history of all these words for one blog post but i’ll offer the etymology of a few-

Ass
from Latin asinus, probably of Middle Eastern origin. Since ancient Greek times, in fables and parables, the animal typifies clumsiness and stupidity hence asshead, fist usage 1550.

Blockhead
translation of the yiddish word zlob which lead to schlub which itself means worthless oaf.

Cretin
1779, from french Alpine dialect crestin, “a dwarfed and deformed idiot,” from latin christianus “a Christian,” a generic term for “anyone,” but often with a sense of “poor fellow.”

Ignoramus (mentioned here previously by member antonia)
1577, Anglo-French legal term, from latin ignoramus “we do not know,” first person present indicative of ignorare “not to know.” The legal term was one a grand jury could write on a bill when it considered the prosecution’s evidence insufficient. Sense of “ignorant person” came from the title role of George Ruggle’s 1615 play satirizing the ignorance of common lawyers.

Jerk
1935, “tedious and ineffectual person,” American English carnival slang, perhaps from jerkwater town (1878), where a steam locomotive crew had to take on boiler water from a trough or a creek because there was no water tank. This led 1890s to an adj. use of jerk as “inferior, insignificant.” Probably also influenced by verb jerk off, slang for “perform male masturbation” (first recorded 1916). Jerk off as an emphatic form of jerk first attested 1968.

Nincompoop
1676, nicompoop. Despite similarity to the latin legal phrase non compos mentis “insane, mentally incompetent” (1607), the connection is denied by etymologists because the earliest forms lack the second -n-. first element (nincom) may be a proper name. Nicodemus? which was used in French for “a fool,” or Nicholas.

Lastly the story of the word dunce (also taken from mental_floss. quote:

Dictionaries don’t play fair, and john duns scotus is proof. the 13th/14th century thinker, whose writings synthesized christian theology and aristotle’s philosophy, was considerably less dumb than a brick. unfortunately for scotus, subsequent theologians took a dim view of all those who championed his viewpoint. these “scotists,” “dunsmen,” or “dunses” were considered hairsplitting meatheads and, eventually, just “dunces."

So there you have it. hopefully now you’ll be able to differentiate the stupidities which assail you just a bit more precisely, allowing you to choose the perfect insult. that ought to have you feeling even more superior as you spit your clever venom.

JORAN...ARE YOU TAKING NOTE.