Idiot

Etymology

Latin etymology

Idiot comes from the Latin étymon cunnus (Vulve). With the the Middle Ages, the diminutives connil and connin (Latin cuniculus ) indicated the rabbit as well as the Conduit S and Tuyau X, to be replaced by the current name of the animal (of laperau ) about the 15th century because of the persistent use of the vulgar meaning of idiot and connin , attested as of the 12th century in the Romance of Renart . In Castilian, the étymon cunnus produced coño which is the equivalent of our modern idiot , in however less vulgar; coney or cony has this meaning today in addition to animalist direction. cona . But, contrary to the French it is used as insults only when it is addressed to a loose woman, and, less often, of limited intelligence - this last use is a Gallicisme of recent importation. The word quoted conho is not any more everyday usage. -->

About the 19th century the French term takes a direction illustrated abusive and sets up an adjectival construction. Employment was then misogynist, exploiting the impotence and the passivity of the female sex of the imaginary collective. Today, the frequent absence of agreement in position of attribute or affixing (e.g. It is idiot. ) points out the nominal origin of the expression, without it being however refers conscious to the vulva. C O unt ry matters? " (Think that I spoke about the pastoral regions?), (" Hamlet ", III, 2, Shakespeare). -->

Cunnus comes indeed as an proto-indo-European either of *kust- (internal, kidney, bladder), or of *skerǝ- (to cross), or of * (S) keu- (to hide). The possible origins of the Germanic étymon *kunton giving cunt are: *g^wneH₂/guneH₂ ( woman , cf Gynecology, queen ) is *gen/gon ( to create , to become , cf Génétique, Gamète) or *geu- (hollow, cavity), direction which it completely lost today. Its opposite enconner , meaning to penetrate, made up on the same mode that To fuck up the ass , practically obsolete and is reserved today for the erotic literature.

Connard is formed by suffixation with the pejorative affix - ard but it is possible that the word was influenced by cuckold ; he does not have, him, that an only illustrated direction. Bitch , on the other hand, indicated at the beginning and until the XXe century a prostitute of bottom stages or inexpert. Its illustrated direction of stupid woman is attested as of XIXe. graphic Conneau and its alternatives connaud and connot , synonymous with jerk , became obsolete during the XXe century.

The others modern derivatives, used in the only illustrated direction are: déconnage and talks cock for the action to output or make stupidities, deconnor for that which likes to say them or to do them, connement as an adverb and connery for stupid thing or without interest.

The patronyms “Bitch”, “Jerk”, “Connart” and alternatives do not have any etymological relationship with the word “idiot”: in continental Europe, they come from the Germanique idiot (hardt) meaning “brave man and hard” (to be brought closer to Dutch koen , “courageous” and of English hardware , “hard”) ^, At the people of Irish origin , Connard and Connart are derivatives of Connacht. The lowness of the term however is deplored by Jules Michelet which indicates:

It one is impiété inept to have made word idiot a low term, an insult. Contempt of the weakness? But we are so happy that they are weak. It is not only the propagator of nature, but the conciliator, the true bottom of the social life for the man| Newspaper , 1887, Jules Michelet

In 1928, Louis Aragon had to make publish clandestinely the Idiot of Irene , a Romance erotic, to avoid the lightnings of the Censure. It is only in 1968 that Régine Deforges republishes it under the title edulcorated Irene ; the book is seized all the same for its erotic contents.

In its illustrated direction, the word is seen more and more employed after the Second world war and appears in works of many writers like Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Louis Aragon or Raymond Queneau. However, “Where that you go, you will be made prick, eh idiot! ” launched by the Préfet of the the Sarthe Jacques Gandouin with a taker of hostages was worth to him a suspension on behalf of the Minister of Interior Department Michel Poniatowski for “attitude nonin conformity with that which one awaits from a senior official”: proof that the substantive was not yet well accepted in 1975, in spite of its relevance in the situation.

Today the word can be employed by a politician without that making scandal - provided that it is not used in an insulting way: the Prime Minister French, Dominique de Villepin will be able to say in March 2006 “They will realize that I am enough idiot to go until the end. ” about the crisis of the Contrat first engages without the vocabulary used not obstructing less world.

One even could read the word (Années 2000) in the very wise Journal of Spirou .

Contemporary and literary use

The character of the idiot

One is always the idiot of somebody|Popular expression .

The word enjoys a great popularity. The character of the idiot , that which one makes fun and which one wants to be different, is omnipresent in the literature, the song or the popular culture Frenchwomen.

One remembers scorning “I like to see my balcony passing the idiots” ( Pornographe of the gramophone ), description “When one is idiot, one is idiot” (refrain of the Temps does not do nothing with the business ) or of repetitive “With my bunch of flowers/my gun/etc I had the air of an idiot, my mother” ( Marinette ) of Georges Brassens. The film the Dinner of idiots of Francis Veber, with Thierry Lhermitte and Jacques Villeret, depicts the character of the idiot, in the idiotic direction, that which one invites for of gausser. The expression king of the idiots amplifies the direction of the word, it is put in music by Georges Brassens in the King ; Renaud on the contrary claims that in the event of abdication of the king of the idiots, “There would be fifty million applicants” (i.e. all French) in Hexagone .

A legendary student's tradition of the National university is to appoint the cook or the intendant responsible for a particularly execrable food of “Which khon”. It is about a ceremony organized with the refectory by the cacic general (1st receipt with the entrance examination of traditional Lettres):

Marjaurie, which had the round and hot voice, stated initially, amply:
- Sirs, What a Khon with the Pot!
Then:
- One, two, three. Then, two ritual syllables, uttered by a hundred and fifty young men, each of both with the same force, and on a rate/rhythm as slow as a step of parade, “Which… Khon! ” two successive howls or rather two enormous blows of gong formed, which a crash of large plates of bar thrown to any flight against the ground continued; noise if nourished and if prolonged that even those which had shouted most extremely required with one anything anxiety how much would last is delirious it of their own multitude| Jules Romans, the Men of good will , delivers 3, chapter 3

The idiot is also the amenable one to a foreign country which one scoffs in the Blague S with character Raciste or Xénophobe: in France, the Belgian Blagues aim at the Walloon neighbors, in Latin America, the Galician (Spanish by Synecdoque) are seen as idiots (be '' pendejos '').

Plays on polysemia

Some used at poetic ends the Polysémie of the word, like Georges Brassens in his Blason . He states to deplore the lowness with which its contemporaries indicate “this incomparable instrument of happiness”:

But the worst of all is small a vocable
Of three letters not more, familiar, coutumier

Shame with that one which, by spite, challenge,
Equipped with the same term in its gall venimeux
This large friend of the man and shingling it injure
That one, it is probable, was a fameux.

The male plague is of this homonymy!
It is unjust, Madam, and it is désobligeant
That this piece of king of your anatomie
Bear the same name as a crowd of people.

Pierre Perret is not remains about it with That of Alice (1974):

If I réfère
With my dictionnaire
It is time of faire
The définition
Of this word espiègle
Who escapes the règle
Nobler than a aigle
In its condition
This word you it dites
Critics hypocrites
Establish vite
Its true direction profond
Because if one it ausculte
Instead of a insulte
One can make a culte
Pretty word con

Political and military use

“Died with the idiots! ” of the military Jargon is a slogan used to stigmatize the enemy. In 1944, the Capitaine Raymond Dronne of the free French Forces (9th company of combat of the Regiment of walk of Chad then 2 {{E}} Armor-plated Division) baptizes its Jeep “died with the idiots”, expression which De Gaulle would have answered “Vast program! ”

Today, the slogan is frequently used by the mediums of Extreme left or alternative to designate the enemy to be cut down. For example, a collective of graffiteurs is made call MAC, Acronyme of “Died with the idiots”. The singer Renaud sings the life of an anarchistic character in these terms: “Nevertheless Died with the idiots in the stair-well, it is me which marked it, it is you to say if I am right! ” ( In my HLM ). Challenged at the time of a Meeting in 1968, De Gaulle would have retorted: “Vast program, indeed! ”. At that time, the idiot of the gauchist was that which returned within the framework of the system: “Elections, trap with idiots”. The enemy can be on the other side of the chess-board: did the publication director of Internet site of the identity Jeunesses (affiliated with the identity Bloc) pass in judgment for Diffamation whose certain terms were “schmuck of left, that looks after himself, doctor? ”. In 1979, following an article of Right Michel in Le Figaro denouncing the version Reggae of the Marseilles composed by Serge Gainsbourg ( With the weapons and will cætera ), this one made circulate a word which passed to the posterity: “There is not the idiot to be also Droit”.

Regional uses and expressions

In the South of the France, in particular with Toulouse where he decides, idiot or his derivative bouducon is used in an impersonal way like Interjection. It is frequently used in the register familiar in beginning or end of sentence, following the example whore or whore idiot . One often summarizes: “Whore, idiot, it is the punctuation. ”.

With Marseilles, the interpellation “Oh! Idiot! ” is used in a nonabusive way between friends or colleagues. The certain made up expressions with idiot , like most known the idiot of ta/sa mother! , the idiot of ta/sa race! and the idiot of Manon (or the idiot of Madon ), can get busy there in an exclamative way, in the absence of anybody to insult. (Of course some of them preserve an abusive employment, like the two first previously quoted). One will notice parallelism with the expressions of the kind Enculé of your race or of your mother in whom the race or the mother is complements without real significance, only intended to reinforce the expression.

In its illustrated direction, the term lost most of its force, in the familiar register at least. Also a great number of expressions reinforce it by the means of a comparison with an object, an animal or a situation symbolizing the silly thing: idiot like a brush , idiot like the moon , idiot like his feet , idiot like a counter without glass , idiot like a bowl , idiot like a young dog , idiot like a bag without handle (expensive expression with Jacques Chirac). For this purpose, it is often affublé of an adjective: large idiot , salts idiot , stupid jerk , poor idiot or schmuck .

Known spoonerisms

The art of the Contrepèterie often utilizes the term, in its direction first, or its derivatives. Most known are the following spoonerisms:

“With Beaumont-the-Viscount”, François Rabelais
“a beautiful thesis with good sides”, Luc Etienne

Famous quotations

One allots to De Gaulle the following answers to “Died to the idiots! ”: “Vast program” and “Heavy task”.
“I divided the company into two categories: my friends or my idiots with me and the idiots of the others which I do not support”, Michel Audiard.
“When you quote a text idiot, do not forget the context”, Jacques Prévert.
“One never should take people for idiots but one should not forget that they are it”, the advertizing executives , Unknown the.
“death it is a little like the connery. Death it does not know that it died, they are the different ones which is sad. For the idiot it is similar… ”, Philippe Geluck.
“And you, stupid jerk, do you think that it is the world, the family, the time when to be posed? Not yet there and already of bad companies! ”, Daniel Pennac.
“If an idiot admits that it is idiot, it is that it is not it really. However if it is not it, and that it admits that it is it, it is that he is idiot nevertheless”, Carali.
“Sometimes, the idiots are useful. They emphasize”, Jean-François Deniau.
“the idiots that dares all, it is even with that they are recognized”, Michel Audiard.

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