Where’s the custard?
So a lizard must be an excess of Liz?
The opposite of Thin Lizzy.
See also: haggard, laggard, braggart (this one changed to a ‘t’ for some reason), dastard, dullard, and a few others. It’s uncommon but it’s out there!
Today I learned I might be too ret.
The root means “slow”, BTW, so it does get to join that list.
They bring up wizard… But what about bards?
Too b or not too b
Jean-Luc Pic
What about retard? SCNR
Unironically, what about Blizz?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/blizzard
Maybe “an excess of blaze (of gunfire)”?
The -ard is basically “fucking” + nominaliser (if necessary):
- wizard - fucking wise one
- drunkard - fucking drunk one
- coward - fucking tail (the initial part is from Old French “coue” tail, itself from Latin “cauda” tail. Who shows the back in a fight? Someone running away!)
The “nominaliser” part is an artefact of the borrowing, the suffix is from French. Romance languages often use adjectives as if they were nouns, but that doesn’t quite roll in English. In turn French borrowed it from Frankish, it’s apparently cognate of English “hard”.
The etymology of “mustard” is disputed. The first part is likely from Latin “mustum” must; it used to be prepared with young wine. The -ard is typically explained as ardens (fiery, hot). So basically “mustum ardens” hot must. …Capsicum peppers are from the Americas, black pepper and long pepper were expensive, European mediaevalards didn’t really have a lot of spicy flavours to work with, so… I guess mustard was spicy for them?
I’m going to turn “wizard” back into an insult. Some smart-aleck tries to act bougie: “fuck off, wizard”
Fucktards be making fuck all the way to the parking lot.
I’m not sure but I think the suffix in this case would yield “fuckard”. With “fucktard” being interpreted as “fuck [re]tard”. And given “retard” is nowadays interpreted as a slur, I’d discourage it.
Oh man… I can’t believe I missed that origin. Yeah… You’re absolutely right about that.
This is largely true. English takes ‘-ard’ from Old French. MW defines it as:
one that is characterized by performing some action, possessing some quality, or being associated with some thing especially conspicuously or excessively
The main point is that it’s generally just a pejorative suffix.
Citing the Trésor de la langue française informatisé, however, Wiktionary puts forward a surprisingly cogent counterargument and alternative etymology to the “packsaddle” one for “bastard”.
So Richard is too rich? Is that why he’s a Dick?
HarvARD
Mine is Blowh
I’ve heard that the term “son of a gun” has a similar origin.
See, when a sailing vessel would visit port all the whores would row out to meet it. They’d be hauled into the gun ports and… ply their wares.
Since they didn’t know who in the gun crew was the father, their boys were “sons of a gun”
