 Applied
to a person, stupid is a hurtful slur. With great effort,
I have forbidden myself to do that. For modifying other nouns, I
try to find more polite alternatives. In place of a stupid statement,
for example, I often use non sequitur...
non sequitur n.
1.
Logic. An inference or conclusion that
does not follow from established premises or evidence.
2. A statement to which no answer seems appropriate or
reasonable.
3. A statement made or a question asked by a person who
is clearly unclear on the concept.
-- The American Heritage Dictionary of
the English Language
...with that third sense added by the author
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Non Sequitur of the First Kind (an inference or
conclusion that does not follow from established premises or evidence)
makes way for logical absurdities.
-
Here is a typical juvenile joke.
"Why are you snapping your fingers?"
"To keep the elephants away."
"There are no elephants within miles of here."
"Works pretty well, doesn't it."
-
An adolescent anecdote is quoted here.
Non Sequitur of the Second Kind (a statement to which
no answer seems appropriate or reasonable) is suitable for satire, for
self-deprecation, and for put-downs.
-
"Prime numbers are odd" (a quote found here).
-
"The ideal rate of expansion is exactly 17.65717% per year"
(a quote found here).
-
"The moon is only 1/16th the size of the earth, but it's
farther away" (a quote found here).
-
"Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing" (a
quote found here).
-
"You're really into that old bicycle shit, aren't you." (a
quote found here).
Non Sequitur of the Third Kind (a statement made or
a question asked by a person who is clearly unclear on the concept) was
discovered by the author while conducting tours of the Bicycle
History Museum.
-
"Have you ever considered donating all these old bicycles
to a museum?"
-
"That drive shaft [on the 19th centrury chainless
bicycle] is just like the one on the BMW motorcycle."
-
"You should see my 21-speed mountain bike, with Campagnolo
components, indexed derailleur, side-pull calipers,..."
-
"The tires have gone flat on my old Schwinn in the garage."
-
"What is the advantage of the large front wheel [on the high-wheel
bicycle] over the sprocket and chain?"
Non Sequitur of All Three Kinds: such a rarity
might indeed qualify for pejoration as stupid.
What
about applying the word stupid to something other than a
person? Like stupid idea. The
expression no-brainer was initially intended to replace stupid
idea. I was there.
More than half a century has flashed by since I began
using the phrase no-brainer with that meaning, to the delight of
colleagues and family members. The original context is long forgotton
but not the phraseology: "That idea [typically of my own] turned out to
be a no-brainer," I was heard to say. Much as today's exclamation,
"What was I THINKing!"
Along its etymological journey,
no-brainer seems
to have shifted its meaning. It is easy to understand why.
Some ideas result from no thought, others
require no thought.
Modern dictionaries define no-brainer only in terms of simplicity.
One example published on the web reads, “Making
pumpkin pie can be a no-brainer if you use frozen pastry and canned
filling.” Thus, in its original sense, "Making pumpkin pie can be
a no-brainer if you're dieting."
The phrase slam dunk has been appropriated from basketball
from time to time as an alternative to no-brainer in the easy sense,
although for must peopole a slam dunk is far from easy. To act in
place of stupid idea, politicians and others have garnered
non-starter
from track-and-field or, in the extreme, dead-on-arrival from emergency-room
parlance.
Now, I do continue to use no-brainer -- but with
its original meaning, secretly mindful that often a simple solution is
really a stupid idea.
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