As an emotionally repressed New Englander, my preferred means of outwardly displaying bonds with the people I\u2019m close to is verbal abuse. \u201cHey, idiot,\u201d is one way to start a text thread that might lead to getting lunch. My dad\u2019s favorite new nickname for me? \u201cStupid.\u201d This works for me, because I am broken.<\/p>\n
But did you know that some of the most prominent put-downs in the English language have been cribbed from outdated \u201cscientific\u201d terminology? See, in the early 1900s, science-types were throwing lots of ideas at the wall, just to see what stuck.<\/p>\n
While this haphazard approach to pseudoscience was ultimately none too enlightening (and often racist as sh*t), it left behind some orphan words. Words that we still use today, mostly divorced of their original meanings. Words that would probably make it to the list of banished terminology, were it not for the fact that we\u2019re over 100 years removed from their scummy origins and, because, we like to use them too much.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m talking about words like \u201cmoron<\/strong>.\u201d We\u2019re all familiar with the term\u2014as a Boston resident who drives a car, I\u2019m mostly accustomed with the regional variant, \u201cyou f**king moron\u201d\u2014but where\u2019d it come from? Believe it or not, \u201cmoron\u201d was once a medical term, mainly applied toward southern and eastern European immigrants.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Back in the early 20th century, there sure were a lot of theories about genetics, largely bred from feverish nationalism. \u201cEugenics,\u201d they called \u2018em, and you\u2019ve probably heard the term before\u2014it\u2019s one of the west\u2019s shining examples of 20th-century archaic quackery; a symptom of an era of unbridled scientific experimentation, performed by dudes who were born in the 19th century.<\/p>\n The result was jingoistic, pseudoscientific chaff like this: \u201cThe character of a nation is determined primarily by its racial qualities; that is the hereditary physical, mental and moral or temperamental traits of its people.\u201d Those are words from Harry H. Laughlin, who was considered an educator and a sociologist, spoken to Congress in support of the eugenics movement.<\/p>\n Over half of all states in the union passed eugenics laws, amidst the craze, which would serve to sterilize the \u201cunfit.\u201d I don\u2019t think it\u2019s much of a coincidence that this came during an immigration boom in the United States. If you were a southern or eastern European, chances are that you were suspicious to American eugenicists. The only way to be sure such immigrants were fit to be Americans was to observe and test them, often at Ellis Island.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n H.H. Goddard\u2014not to be confused with his aforementioned colleague, H.H. Laughlin\u2014was another big name in eugenics at the time. Technically speaking, he was indeed a psychologist, with a PhD and everything, which just goes to show you that eugenics really was considered cutting-edge science at the time. Rather than, you know, the expression of xenophobic tendencies via the facade of empiricism.<\/p>\n Goddard\u2019s legacy, if I\u2019m being charitable, is that he is the father of American intelligence testing. That doesn\u2019t sound so bad, right? Intelligence\u2014that\u2019s good! We should test for it to find more of it, right?<\/p>\n Well, that was Goddard\u2019s basic idea, I suppose. Only, he was notably preoccupied with testing the intelligence of immigrants\u2014particularly of the Hungarian, Italian, and Jewish variety.<\/p>\n The scientific community already had a pretty airtight method for diagnosing cognitive disabilities and categorizing them into three types: \u201cidiots,\u201d \u201cimbeciles,\u201d and the \u201cfeeble-minded.\u201d So that\u2019s where psychology was before Goddard added his own term: \u201cmoron.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFeeble-minded\u201d was the least severe of these categories, but Goddard wasn\u2019t happy with the name. He wanted something that sounded more scientific. So, Goddard did what people do when they want to sound smart and coin smart-sounding words: he checked a classical language for inspiration. The Greek word m\u014dros<\/i>, meaning \u201cfoolish\u201d or \u201cstupid\u201d would do nicely, with a bit of anglicization, of course. Thus, in 1910, the word \u201cmoron\u201d was born.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Now that Goddard had settled on his wording, he needed to figure out exactly who the morons were, and how to keep them from entering America.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth pointing out that this grave need to filter out \u201cunfit\u201d immigrants from entering the United States wasn\u2019t quite from the point of view that Americans were great, and foreigners sucked. Instead, eugenicists like Goddard were troubled by a perceived lack of intelligence amongst Americans already.<\/p>\n The quality of \u201cAmerican stock\u201d was already worrying to these eugenicists, and was thought to be the source of the United States\u2019 flaws. So turning away immigrants that they determined to also of poor \u201cstock\u201d was an effort to stop the \u201cproblem\u201d from getting worse.<\/p>\n Still, it all seemed pretty damn racist, when you consider the hypothesis, the methodology, and the results. In 1913, Goddard had female assistants (they\u2019re more intuitive, he thought) go to Ellis Island, where they would pretty much just eyeball immigrants in order to pick out the likely \u201cmorons\u201d and then administer Goddard\u2019s tests.<\/p>\n The results: 40 percent of Jews, Italians, and Hungarians were \u201cmorons.\u201d Goddard wrote in his report, \u201cDoubtless the thought in every reader\u2019s mind is the same as in ours, that it is impossible that half of such a group of immigrants could be feeble-minded, but know that it is never wise to discard a scientific result because of apparent absurdity.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s unpack Goddard\u2019s results a little bit here: First, 40 percent of a group of people ain\u2019t half, it\u2019s two-fifths. At least he comes close to nailing the analysis portion of his testing here: \u201cit is impossible that half of such a group of immigrants could be feeble-minded.\u201d Indeed it is, Goddard. Maybe the problem was with how the experiment was conducted. For example: was the test conducted in English? That might have accounted for some poor results.<\/p>\n I hope it goes without saying that, just because I\u2019m delivering this information to you, doesn\u2019t mean I support any of the above terminologies or eugenics theory. That said, absorbing history is about understanding context, and Goddard was a product of his time, just like everybody else. In 1910, \u201cmoron\u201d couldn\u2019t have had the same meaning to broader culture that it holds now, and psychology\u2019s terminology game at the time was pretty weak, in general. If you can diagnose someone as an \u201cidiot,\u201d then why not \u201cmoron\u201d? Seems like anything went.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the problem\u2014this stuff was taken seriously enough that \u201cmorons\u201d started being deported like crazy following Goddard\u2019s results. Deportation numbers doubled in the year after Goddard\u2019s presented his findings.<\/p>\nI Sh*t You Not: Here’s How The Word Moron Originated<\/h3>\n
\u2018Moron,\u2019 Brought to You by Henry H. Goddard<\/h3>\n
Great. So Then What\u2019d He Do? Moron Expands.<\/h3>\n