Idiot!
A long time ago, dealing with Thai and Karen people who spoke English as a second (or third? or fourth?) language, that English has a remarkably large number of words for “people of lesser intelligence”. Do we in the English-speaking world have an overabundance of stupidity, or an obsession with it? Anyway, now I’m going to try to list them all… (perhaps a useful language lesson?)
- nouns
- idiot
- moron
- dolt
- imbecile
- twit
- dimwit (and various other *wits, mostly not spoken in polite company)
- dope
- dufus
- dill
- bonehead
- lame-brain
- imbecile
- pinhead
- numbskull
- fruitloop
- fruitcake
- loonytune
- adjectives
- stupid
- dumb
- dopey
- moronic
- docile (for some reason we used to use this all the time, although it means something else quite different)
- idiotic
- dim
- dull
- silly
- brain-dead
Posted Friday, February 24, 2006