stupid, n.

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 10:02 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
> On Jul 1, 2012, at 10:55 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Another adj. > n.
> >
> > HBO's _The Newsroom_ last Sunday had a journalist explain in frustration
> > that the mission of the Fourth Estate has become "to tell truth to
> > stupid."
>
> Didn't the "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts cover this ground a while ago?

Not exactly -- "I'm with stupid" is of a piece with "stupid" = 'stupid
person', in OED from 1712 (often vocatively, as in the "It's the
economy, stupid"). Perhaps more relevant here is "stuck on stupid",
which we've discussed before (dates back to 1990):

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0609A&L=ADS-L&P=R1952&I=-3

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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