Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream:
Sow, sow, sow your prayers: God may be, but cannot seem.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Reap, reap, reap your tears: little boy, don’t fight don’t scream.
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moron: c. 1910, coined by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from Greek μωρός, mōron, neuter of moros, “foolish, dull, sluggish, stupid.” Clinical term for “one in the highest class of feeble-minded persons,” higher than imbecile or idiot, as used in medical, educational, and regulatory texts until the end of the 20th century.
imbecile: 1540s, imbecille, “weak, feeble,” from French imbecile, Latin imbecillus (cf. Juvenal, imbecillis: quasi sine baculo). “ “Mentally weak or incapable” by mid-18th century: “beneath a moron, but above an idiot” in the hierarchy of the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded.
idiot (n): early 14th c., “mentally deficient person,” from Old French idiote, “uneducated or ignorant person” (12th c.), Latin idiota, “ordinary person, layman,” Greek ἰδιώτης (idiōtēs), “person lacking professional skill (as opposed to a skilled workman, soldier)” or “private citizen (as opposed to one holding political office), individual,” from idios, “one’s own.” (See idiom.)
©2023 Suji Kwock Kim