stupid

   This word is a frequent element in a vocative group of the type ‘you stupid fool’, but it is also used alone. ‘Don’t do that, stupid,’ is a fairly mild utterance, used especially by children to each other, and likely to produce the retort ‘Stupid yourself!’

   The right tone of voice can easily convert ‘stupid’ into a covert endearment or a term of friendliness.

   Judgement Day, by Penelope Lively, has a young girl saying to a boy: ‘It’s not playing, you stupid. It’s acting.’ In Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica occurs: ‘“I didn’t know England would be like this,” said Rachel: “it’s very like Jamaica.” “This isn’t England,” said John, “you stupid!”’ John, in this case, is about twelve years old; Rachel, his sister, is several years younger.

   Addressed to an adult, ‘stupid’ is likely to cause great offence. Thus, in Benjamin Disraeli’s novel Sybil a man who is marshalling men says to one of them: ‘Come, stupid, what are you staring about? Get your men in order, or I’ll be among you.’ ‘Stupid!’ says the man so addressed, ‘And who are you who says “Stupid”? A white-livered Handloom as I dare say, or a son-of-a-gun of a factory slave. Stupid indeed! What next, when a Hell-cat is to be called stupid by such a thing as you?’