h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now someone will post a link to an IQ test

I'm proud to be an idiotas long as folk smile by my antics, then job done

ps: my IQ is approx' 140 (mensa test)

F1926355?thread=7457123

Idiocy! the only thing I'm good at and it don't pay

Have you considered asking for a raise?

1967 I entered hospital at a height of 5ft 1ins for op' on my spine I came out at a height of 5ft 3ins last rise I've ever had

Sounds like a spinetingling adventure. :-0

I had a laugh and THAT'S too long a story to write

You laughed as the result of an operation?

also at what I did while in the hospital

you know me - humour at any opportunity

Did they operate on your humerus?

idiot is as idiot does

That reminds me I should read Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" one of these days.

"Calling something "gay" is plain wrong and I call people on that.

Calling someone an idiot isn't really a slur on people with mental health issues in the same way, though, is it?"

I think it pretty much is the same... Nowadays, the medical terms are insults, so you could see it as saying they were always insults, so if you use a term to insult someone, it doesn't reflect on the people who were called the term in the past, as they were also being insulted then. However, if the medical terms were just words (like "gay") to describe people, then using the terms as insults is saying that the people who were called that were wrong in some way not just different...

I definitely think of "Village Idiot" as a technical term rather than an insult, because people who came to be called that were almost certainly disabled but were tolerated in some way within their communities, so they weren't wrong, just different...

Language does evolve, though, so it is interesting whether 'gay' can survive as a neutral term... The link between words and motives is also interesting - hence PC words like "special" become insults in themselves because the motives behind them don't change... All very difficult...

Fascinating thread, though

"Special" became a humorous reference after Dana Carvey's "Saturday Night Live" skits in which he portrayed the "Church Lady," who kept saying, "Now isn't that special?"

There are many old poems with the word "gay" in them, meaning "merry' or "happy."

"Idiot," "moron" and "imbecile" were not mental health terms. They referred to I.Q. levels. If you use them in a medical context, I imagine they would still be okay to use. Otherwise, you're on your own as far as risks are concerned.

The Darwin Awards offer a tongue in cheek approach to spotlighting people who make the worst possible judgment calls. Are people with spectacularly bad judgment stupid? Not necessarily. How about the book "Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things?"
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spots-Smart-People-Things/dp/1591025095/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1435675537&sr=8-6&keywords=smart+dumb

This brings us to "dumb," which in its older connotations referred to people who couldn't speak.

Frankly, I think the world *needs* a term for really bad judgment or lack of common sense, but without the inflammatory possibilities.

"Fool" seems a perfectly acceptable word.



"ps: my IQ is approx' 140 (mensa test)"


Real mensa test or the online mensa workout? There's an important difference.

To be fair, though, the difference isn't as important as Mensa members believe.

Apologies, make that '...many Mensa members.'

Perhaps not. Not being a Mensa member, I wouldn't know.

sent off mensano computers involved