Nimrod

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

Hi, this is Kathy.

Hi, Kathy. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What can we help you with?

Well, I’m an eighth grade teacher, and I was teaching some essay writing, and we were researching Ernest Shackleton. And one of Ernest Shackleton’s ships was named the Nimrod. So one of my kids says to me, why would they call a ship Nimrod when that’s a word we use to make somebody sound stupid? And I have never been so completely taken aback in 20 years of being an English teacher.

So another student, and this is what really threw me, says, oh, I know, I know. Nimrod was a hunter. And when Bugs Bunny used to call Elmer Fudd Nimrod, nobody knew he was calling him a hunter. The kids thought he was calling him stupid. I was completely floored.

So I can’t seem to find this anywhere. And I thought of you and thought, well, maybe you all could answer that for us.

Oh, very good. Very good. It sounds like you’ve got some bright kids there.

Yeah, I do. I was completely taken aback. It was great. Great conversation, but I didn’t have the answer.

Yeah, Nimrod is a figure in the Bible. He’s the grandson of Noah in Genesis.

A great-grandson.

I’m sorry, is he great?

Yeah, a great-grandson.

Grandson of Ham?

Son of Cush.

Son of Cush.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

But that’s a long way to Bugs Bunny.

Yeah.

Oh, there’s an interesting story there along the way. And I think one of your kids nailed it. It came pretty close, right?

Yeah.

Somehow between Nimrod being described in the Bible as a mighty hunter, it became this word for sort of an idiot or a lame brain.

How?

And it seems to have been popularized by the Looney Tunes cartoons. I’ve seen cartoons where Daffy Duck calls Elmer Fudd a Nimrod.

Oh, it’s a Daffy Duck.

Okay.

Well, and Bugs Bunny calls Yosemite Sam. I watch cartoons in pursuit of knowledge. And they do it not necessarily as a hunter, just sort of as a sort of, you know.

So Elmer’s not wearing his hat and carrying his gun at the time.

He is.

He is.

Okay.

So it’s a reference that the audience wouldn’t have gotten necessarily unless they had biblical training.

Yeah, which they would have more probably maybe than they do now. But still, if there was enough influence to make the term stick to mean dimwit.

Yeah.

Well, how did it make that leap?

That’s a great question. They made that leap before the cartoon. Yeah, in the Oxford English Dictionary, there’s one example that the editors there have gathered of Nimrod meaning dummy from the 1930s, which is before any of these cartoons were broadcast. And so we’re not quite sure. It’s kind of one of those really nice etymological puzzles.

Did I stump you?

I’m amazed.

Yeah, sure.

I would say that Nimrod has stumped the people who’ve tried to figure this out. Everybody who’s looked into it has come up with the same answer, which is we don’t know why Nimrod changed in the 1930s. But we do know that the Looney Tunes cartoons had a lot to do with popularizing the idea that Nimrod meant dummy.

Okay.

I can see if you’re talking to fellow hunters and you could be sarcastic, you know, saying, oh, you Nimrod or something.

Right.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

And that’s probably where Shackleton got the name for his ship, Nimrod the Hunter.

Right.

He wasn’t thinking of a dummy.

Yeah.

He was definitely not there.

Definitely not.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Oh, thank you for the call, and keep teaching those bright kids. That’s a good job you’re doing there.

All right.

Thanks so much.

Take care.

Good to talk to you both.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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