Village's missing idiot

[Scot LaFaive]

Thanks for the info, I was curious if it predated Bush. Seems it did, but
not by much. I didn't find any earlier hits on ProQuest and LexisNexis.

Scot


>From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Village's missing idiot
>Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 13:18:10 -0500
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>Subject:      Village's missing idiot
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>While many of us relate the saying "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing
>its idiot" specifically with the current president, and it may have been an
>Ivinsism from Shrub's gubernatorial days, the core of the expression has
>entered popular currency as an insult of wider application.
>
>As early as 31 July 1997, a quotation appeared in the _Pittsburg Post
>Gazette_: "'Somewhere in the world, there are two villages missing their
>idiots,' one police officer theorized."
>
>A letter-to-the-editor of the _Arkansas Democrat-Gazette_ for 1 December
>2000 declared, "I can't but wonder that (sic) somewhere in this great state
>of Arkansas, some village is missing its idiot." The reference, improbably,
>is Bill Clinton!
>
>A good many other instances of the proverb used in non-W'istical
>applications can be rounded up from Lexis-Nexis and Google.
>
>--Charlie
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