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so's your old man
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jae brought up the famous Eskimo vocabulary hoax (and its Dutch and, I maintain, English cousin, as well), I was reminded that from time to time I am amused by how many epithets we can use in English by prefixing something onto the word head. Observe (though this will not be an exhaustive list because I am much nicer than that [g]):
insulting prefixes to add to -head:
Other suggestions are more than welcome, of course, to say nothing of related concepts like addle- (-pate[d]), bird- (-brain), etc.
All of these imply that the object of the epithet is of less than normal intelligence, of course. Interestingly, I can think of just the one such thing implying that the object is of greater than normal intelligence (and it's not exactly a compliment, is the thing):
prefixes going the other way:
Thoughts?
jae brought up the famous Eskimo vocabulary hoax (and its Dutch and, I maintain, English cousin, as well), I was reminded that from time to time I am amused by how many epithets we can use in English by prefixing something onto the word head. Observe (though this will not be an exhaustive list because I am much nicer than that [g]):insulting prefixes to add to -head:
- block-
- bone-
- butt-
- chowder-
- chuckle-
- dick-
- doo-doo-
- dunder-
- lunk-
- meat-
- poopy-
- shit-
- thick-
Other suggestions are more than welcome, of course, to say nothing of related concepts like addle- (-pate[d]), bird- (-brain), etc.
All of these imply that the object of the epithet is of less than normal intelligence, of course. Interestingly, I can think of just the one such thing implying that the object is of greater than normal intelligence (and it's not exactly a compliment, is the thing):
prefixes going the other way:
- egg-
Thoughts?
no subject
-- cheese-head, which is positive or negative depending on one's opinion of the Green Bay Packers &/or American Football fans in general.
-- shell-head, which may properly not belong in the list at all, as it is mostly used as a nickname for Iron-Man.
-- jet-head, which may have been simply one person's expression, meaning 'likes to go really fast'
Air-
Pot-
Hot-
no subject
You're right about cheese-, of course, and also in the same vein Dead-. I think of those, and pot-, as being more literally descriptive than epithet-y, but that's certainly a point for debate. (The Top Gear lads often describe car enthusiasts as petrolheads, which, ditto.) Also jarhead, which means 'United States Marine'. But hot- is a good one that doesn't mean 'stupid person'. Hurrah!