From Lardner to Trump, the Tale of ‘Goofy’
Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2016
Donald Trump’s litany of disparaging nicknames for his political opponents shows no sign of abating, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren his latest target.
At a campaign rally in Eugene, Ore., on May 6, Mr. Trump taunted Ms. Warren in a salvo against Hillary Clinton. “I just learned that Crooked Hillary, along with her friend—you know, she’s got this goofy friend named Elizabeth Warren, she’s on a Twitter rant. She’s a goofus.”
Sen. Warren swiftly responded on Twitter: “‘Goofy,’ @realDonaldTrump? For a guy with ‘the best words’ that’s a pretty lame nickname. Weak!”
University of Delaware English professor Ben Yagoda recently noted in a Chronicle of Higher Education blog post that Mr. Trump’s penchant for nicknaming (his Twitter repertoire now includes “Goofy Elizabeth Warren” and “Crazy Bernie Sanders”) could be seen as a “single-handed revival of the Homeric epithet.” But Homer’s epithets were descriptive rather than derogatory, and most were reserved for gods and heroes—such as “swift-footed Achilles” or “gray-eyed Athena.”
Both “goofy” and “goofus” go back to “goof,” originally a word for a simpleton or clumsy fool, with a possible root in the Middle French “goffe,” meaning “awkward” or “stupid.” In the early 20th century, “goof” became a popular put-down in American slang. Ring Lardner, for instance, has a character in his 1916 story “Gullible’s Travels” say, “It ain’t the same show, you goof!”
The adjective “goofy,” meaning silly or stupid, took off among U.S. soldiers in World War I. A 1918 article in the Idaho Daily Statesman listed the word among the slang used by young men training at Camp Lewis in Tacoma, Wash.: “The recruit of enfeebled intellect is no longer ‘nutty’ or a ‘feeb’; he is ‘goofy.’” A decade and a half later, Walt Disney’s animated shorts would introduce the simple-minded anthropomorphic dog, Goofy.
Around the same time, “goofus” emerged as a comical name for someone foolish. In 1916 the syndicated humor columnist Arthur “Bugs” Baer started using “Goofus” to label various silly characters, and that same year a story in the magazine Our Navy featured a ship with a “pet hippopotamus mascot” named Goofus.
“Goofus” was also the title of a novelty hit for bandleader Wayne King in 1930. Gus Kahn’s lyrics tell of a self-taught saxophone player from Iowa: “I’d start to play, folks used to say, sounds a little goofus to me.”
In the late 1940s, “goofus” got another boost of attention thanks to the children’s magazine Highlights and its cartoon feature “Goofus & Gallant.” In each installment, the behavior of a polite and respectful boy named Gallant was contrasted with his immature friend Goofus.
Likely influenced by “goofus,” the epithet “doofus” first showed up in the 1950s. John Lardner (a son of Ring) used it in a 1955 New York Times story to label a dimwitted boxer: “Doofus lost every round from the third…!”
It remains to be seen if Mr. Trump will use “doofus” in his next round of name-calling.