So stupid.
Let’s face it: some folks out there just aren’t that bright. You can’t cure stupidity, but at least you can vent some frustration by giving it a name!
Nescience is one of the gentler words in today’s trio: it’s not a lack of intelligence, but rather, a simple lack of knowledge. The word comes to us from the Latin nescientia, “not knowing”.
In a religious context, nescience can also refer to unbelievers, or those who are unfamiliar with a religion’s practices and beliefs.
In this material world there are different types of achievement, but of all of them the achievement of knowledge is considered to be the highest because one can cross the ocean of nescience only on the boat of knowledge. Srimad-Bhagavatam, 4.24.75
The badaud is a gawker, a bystander who eagerly spouts idle gossip about anything and everything. The word is French in origin, and was used in the 19th century as a contemptuous label for the street crowds who would gather at any spectacle or tragedy. It carries connotations of slack-jawed stupidity, gullibility, and mob behavior.
If the people of Paris are most readily described as badauds, it is only because there are more people in Paris than elsewhere, and consequently more useless people. They gather at the first unfamiliar sight, to contemplate a charlatan, or two women of the people arguing, or a driver whose cart has overturned. Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique
A lurdan is an oaf: clumsy, stupid, and lazy. The word comes to us from the Middle French word lourd, meaning “heavy” or “dull”.
The word is dwindling into obsolescence, but sadly, the stupidity continues.
Hungry for more? Exotic words to appeal to any palate can be found in the Lunchbox archives!
