Believe it or not...there are web sites devoted to differentiation between the nuances of these nouns all of which infer a degree of deficiency in intellect and/or common sense. One such site, What Are The Differences Between A "Nitwit", "Halfwit", And A "Dimwit", is one such post on Yahoo Answers and the source of the title of this post - ten fries short of a Happy Meal. When I was younger, we had a similar saying - 'his elevator is st
uck in the basement.'There are at least 29 words which are synonyms or nouns with essentially the same meaning: nimcompoop, ignoramus,dolt, idiot, moron, etc.
A number of my bloggers, siblings and friends have asked why I have chosen a self-depracating screen name of NitWit1. My siblings called me the "egghead" of the family. It is an old family joke, of sorts.
Although raised in a somewhat austere atmosphere where behavior was adjudicated by Mother, she did allow us, at times, to behave like kids goofy, goony, silly. When the silliness's became more than Mother could tolerate, which usually included being too loud for her migraines, she often said, "Stop acting like a bunch of nitwits!"
Nimcompoop and ignoramus were other members of her chiding, but loving vocabulary. "Nitwit" stuck with me all of my 70+ years, and now in my older age, sometimes I think it may be applicable - like when I absentmindedly put the vanilla extract in the freezer, or place my clean lingerie in a different dresser drawer.
In my computer environment, especially Internet and e-mail, it seems a screen name is needed for every activity: 'Please provide a name for this COMPUTER, NETWORK, DISPLAY NAME,' etc. I tired of remembering a myriad of names for three to six computers in the house, including a handheld. Each unit, except my husband's, is NitWit1, NitWit2, etc. An earlier Windows version required your Networks be named; hence Nitwits.
I blame those egghead twits at Microsoft who created this convoluted scheme to mind boggle -dare I say - the dimwits struggling with various versions of the capricious Windows operating system.
I know....too many nitwits, ten fries short of a Happy Meal!
