idiot

   The word is sometimes used alone in a semi-exclamatory way, especially when someone has just said something foolish. It is also frequent as ‘you idiot’ and in expanded forms. Thus, an uncle addresses his nephew in Mariana, by Monica Dickens, as ‘you silly young idiot’, though this is more in sorrow than in anger. One cannot imagine the term being used to someone who was really an idiot, someone permanently deficient in mental and intellectual terms. In the novels of Edna O’Brien about life in Ireland, ‘you eejit’, ‘blithering eejit’, etc., occur regularly. Connected with such dialectal pronunciation of the word is ‘nidget’ (nigit, nigid, niget, nigget, etc), found in literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. ‘Nidget’ had the same meaning as ‘idiot’ and arose by transfer of the 12 from the indefinite article - ‘an idget’ becoming ‘a nidget’.

   In modem times ‘idiot’ is usually used lightly, with a meaning similar to clown. It can be an endearment rather than an insult when said by lovers. ‘You bloody idiot’ is undoubtedly more offensive, and it can be used with venom in other forms, as shown by ‘you creeping idiot’ in Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot. In that instance it is used with contempt by a woman who despises the slow movement of her husband. Its affectionate use is shown in, e.g., The Business of Loving, by Godfrey Smith: ‘“What do you think of my Tropical Sin?”’ “Your whaf?” “The scent you gave me, you idiot.”’