Etymologies and metaphors behind words for unintelligent

incredible taxonomy of the feeble-minded that some guys formalized a century ago

Aug 18, 2023

I guess 12yos were more mature back then; someone making this now would probably want a category for "permanently arrested at age 13-18"

this brought to you by me being curious about the origin of different words for "unintelligent" - "dumb" (can't express verbally) - "idiot" (idio = "of one's own" ie unable to relate. compare "aut-ism") - "stupid" (stunned, struck. think "stupefy!" 🪄) ("moron" is unknown)

lots of words for "unintelligent" are more obvious metaphors: - "dull" (cannot cut) - "dim" (cannot illuminate) - "slow" (commonly confused for unintelligence but they aren't as related as you'd think!) - "dense" is probably a remix on slow via viscosity

regarding slowness-as-unintelligence, there's a common misconception that kids who don't learn things as fast as their peers can't learn them at all

but it turns out that slow kids only end up looking stupid if you put them in a context that forces them to move to lesson 3 before they've finished 1 let alone 2!

anyway, I'm not sure *why* I was curious about this but #MetaphorsMatter and I've found it meaningful to not try to compress these all onto one axis

if you let the words have actual meanings, then you can notice when someone is dull but not dim, or dumb but not stupid! or how each of them feels from the inside 😅