Knucklehead

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joan. I’m calling from McKinney, Texas.

I’m originally from New Jersey, but I moved out here recently to be near my grandchildren.

What’s on your mind?

I’ve always had an interest in the origin of words.

I decided to suggest a word that’s really been on my mind for a long time, and it’s the word knucklehead.

Knucklehead. Do you call people knuckleheads? Like your grandkids?

No, I don’t.

Do people call you knucklehead?

No, no.

Okay.

You know, the first thing I thought about was a ventriloquist and a dummy.

That’s what it reminded me of, like a dummy.

And then my mind went to the Twilight Zone because they had dummies on that series a lot.

And they were really scary.

They can be, yeah.

You know, I hadn’t thought of that, but you know, you’re not far off from why we call people knuckleheads.

And it’s the same reason we might call people a bonehead or a blockhead.

The idea behind all three of these words is that there’s no room for brains.

All that’s up there is wood if you’re a blockhead or bone if you’re a bonehead or knuckle if you’re a knucklehead.

It’s just knuckle all the way through.

No brains.

It just kind of means you’re dope.

You’re dumb, dumb.

It’s not nice, but I think knucklehead is said with a lot of humor these days.

I think it’s a very mild deprecation, a very mild insult.

You might look at somebody who is trying to, let’s say, put a grocery card back and not really getting it in the slot very well, and they keep trying to say,

Oh, look at this knucklehead, what is he doing?

You know, it’s just kind of a good-natured insult, I think.

I wasn’t sure.

I was on the fence whether or not it was good-natured or if it was really disparaging, but I’m glad to hear that.

Yeah, and it’s got a little bit of a history.

Now, as far back as the 1860s, there were a variety of different coupling devices in oil drilling and railroading and other things that had the name knuckleheads or just knuckles, because they kind of look like knuckles on the hand. Kind of these curved devices that connect to each other.

But I don’t think that’s the origin, and neither do any of my colleagues who’ve looked into this.

But by 1890, we find knucklehead as an insult. And it pops up here and there as a nickname, but it kind of faded out of use until World War II, when the U.S. Military had a cartoon character named Cadet RF Knucklehead. He was used by the Army Air Force starting in 1941, showing pilots what not to do when flying.

He was just really this, how should I put this? He was the antithesis of an ace, an ace pilot, you know. He always did the wrong thing. He didn’t do his flight checks. He didn’t prep his plane. He flew the plane incorrectly. He was always prone to accidents. He was kind of a danger to himself and others.

And after that, Knucklehead kind of took on a new life, not only in the Army Air Force, but other branches of the service started popping up in the slang and jargon of the Air Force, spread throughout the military, and then spread with more force into the larger population. And of course, we may know Knucklehead through the Three Stooges, but really had a lot more life after that. And then it’s kind of, again, faded out of use ever since.

Wow, that’s very interesting. I didn’t realize that the origin of the word went way back.

So there you go, Joan. That’s great. Thank you so much.

Sure, we appreciate your calling. Take care now. Bye-bye.

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