The Lunxicon

When I was in elementary school, was everybody’s favorite teacher (well, the boys’ favorite, anyway) was Mr. Woodward. Mr. Woodward was a balding fellow with piercing blue eyes and a poorly developed ring goatee. Now, us young gents all loved Mr. Woodward because he was the PE teacher, which meant instead of making us do actual work, he had us play soccer and non-stop cricket (yay, British schools). We also liked him because he taught us great ways to make fun of each other. For example, if somebody stuttered or said something stupid, Mr. Woodward would smack his forehead with the palm of his hand, dig his tongue between his lower gum and lower lip, and make a very unattractive sound. The only comparison I can come up with is to the sound I imagine would come out of a bathroom stall containing a young Down syndrome sufferer who is painfully unaware of his own constipation and is trying with all his might to remove last night’s dinner from his body.

Besides inspiring me to do my own offensive mental retard impressions, Mr. Woodward also taught me one of my favorite words: Nincompoop.

Nincompoop is one of those great words that seems to have fallen out of the modern lexicon. In case you don’t know, a nincompoop is a simpleton; a fool; a moron. Part of me wonders if the word has lost popularity because there are so many alternative zings with fewer syllables. Is our society really that lazy? Sure, I could hurl around such plebian insults as “dumbass” or “retard,” but they don’t roll off the tongue quite like “nincompoop.” First of all, it has “poop” in it. Second of all, it has a classic quality. For example, on my way to work this morning I had to run furiously to transfer from one train to another. I barely made the transfer because as I reached the second train, a blithering fool of a woman was standing right in front of the door, with two huge bags that probably contained nothing but cotton swabs and pencil sharpeners, blocking everyone’s entrance to the train. She was poking her head into the train, but remaining outside. She remained in this position for about 10 seconds before suddenly swiveling and saying “Oh, shit!” In swivelling, her bag got caught on my headphone wire and yanked my headphones off my head. Instead of apologizing, she rolled her eyes and sighed like a disgruntled teenage girl. Having run out of cigarettes the night prior, I was in a less than brilliant mood and let my temper get the best of me.

“Jesus, lady, watch it.”
“Excuse me? Maybe you shouldn’t stand so close to me.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be a complete fucking NINCOMPOOP and stand right in front of the train door in the middle of rush hour.”

To this, she had no retort. Her eyes bulged for a split second, then narrowed. Her lips twitched, as if she were about to respond but thought better of it. Instead of responding, she huffed and puffed and waddled off with her gigantic bags, probably filled with the semen of various farm animals. Yes, I had rendered her speechless. That is the beauty of the classic insult. When you pull out a gem like “nincompoop,” people know you are on a higher level. There’s something about classic insults that just instantly takes people down a peg.

Join me in bringing back “nincompoop” (not to mention “nincompoopery” and “nincompoopish”). It is as satisfying a word as any, and it simply rolls off the tongue. It brings to mind visions of centuries gone by, when a rapier wit was the key to success and vaginas; when dandies were called dandies, not homos. It’s a word to use when you want to dress someone down and you want to have a little class while doing so.