fopdoodle

For this week’s edition of Beautiful Words, I’m choosing something silly. I mean, I love all the lush, poetic words and have tried to incorporate them into my expanding vocabulary. But I also love the silly, old-timey words that, given our state of current events, seem more timely than ever.

Such is the word fopdoodle.

It’s a noun, and it literally means: dumbass.

Plain and simple. No puffery. Just a straight up insult.

Oh, but imagine the fun you’ll have calling someone a fopdoodle instead of resorting to the pedestrian term “dumbass.” I think I speak for most writers when I say we live and die for irony. Insulting someone’s intelligence with a term they don’t understand is the perfect ironic twist.

And please don’t think I’ve failed to notice that this word rhymes with the name of an illustrious character of Jean Shepherd, one Ollie Hopnoodle. Surely, it’s no coincidence.

At times, it can feel that the fopdoodle has taken the place of the rational, thinking adult. They hide behind keyboards or appear on news channel panels to express their delusional opinions.They suck up space on your social media feed to discuss their outrage or praise something undeserving. They’re the reason your coffee cup now bears a “contents may be hot” warning label.

You may have thought natural selection would remedy that. But you’d be wrong. Fopdoodles are here to stay, I’m afraid. It’s best to know what you’re dealing with and act accordingly.

So, the next time someone is pushing your buttons and clearly lacking intelligence, I encourage you to step up your game and refer to them as a fopdoodle. Then smile. And walk away.

Do you enjoy learning new words?