30 Of The Most Subtle And Polite Ways To Describe A Person’s Lack Of Intelligence Shared In This Online Group
Are you stuck on a cruise ship full of people during the corona crisis again? Ever wondered what to say to that inept neighbor from the next cabin who's on a mission to vaccinate—oh, I mean, who doesn't want to vaccinate everybody? Well, wonder no more! These euphemisms telling people they are stupid, as suggested by various Reddit users, will cut straight to the chase. And no tinfoil hat can save them now.
A Reddit user by the name of u/lientubay asked the world “What's the best euphemism for telling people that they're stupid?” More than 60 thousand people had apparently pondered the same question and the thread skyrocketed. People from all around the world shared various ways to insult stupid people politely by using both modern ingenuity and old folk proverbs.
Finally, instead of awkwardly using the same insult over and over again like “so is your face,” we can once again feel confident in ourselves when encountering a stupid person. What a tough world for us—intelligent people—this is. Thanks for making our life bearable, Reddit!
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In russian we have "intelligent thoughts have always followed him, but he was faster".
I would agree with you but then we would both be wrong
Sharp as a marble, that one.
My Grandad used this all the time (fortunately not to me, well not to my face anyway)
One of my personal favorites:
"They only got two brain cells and both of them are fighting for third place."
Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
Ahh yes, “it’s better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”. A classic.
In Greece we say "when it was raining brains, you had an umbrella"
Now I know what Douglas Adams was talking about.
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
You could hide your own Easter eggs.
I think I saw this one here previously “You aren’t the biggest idiot in the world but you better hope they don’t die”.
It's impossible to underestimate you
Like if they're really dumb, they might not even see this as an insult
You're the reason we have warning labels.
"If you ever had a clever thought, it died alone and afraid."
If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d be twice as smart as you really are.
A village somewhere is missing their idiot.
He needs to carry a plant to make up for the oxygen he's wasting
I can explain it again, if you'd like, but I can't understand for you.
A variation "I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you" has hung in my office for years :)
"I'm guessing you weren't burdened with an overabundance of schooling."
-Captain Malcom Reynolds
Saw two coworkers going about a task in the worst way I could imagine. I said "I believe if there was a harder way to do that you two would find it."
They didn't get it.
Once heard someone say "Well he's about as sharp as a sock full of soup".
You could blow in their ear and they would say thanks for the refill.
One of my all time favorites is "More foam than beer".
"At this point, you can only impress me."
"Well pardon me, ma'am but what you don't know could fill a warehouse."
Courtesy of Bart Simpson.
If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off.
Note: this post originally had 49 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I like George Carlin's quote : Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
My father used to call stupid people in a large group, “the idiot fringe”.
They're not the fringe. They're the base.
Sadly true.
or republicans
I call them "Republicans."
Also from GC: "think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."
...or Arlo Guthrie: sittin'' on the Group W bench.
Very true,we see this over and over again. However,I have seen also some malicious comments below that I would rate as Bullying.It is easy to make fun of people who are less intelligent,have had fewer oportunities or the means to study. In the olden times there was not a country that did not have a region or group of peoples that were considered inferior/rustic/dumb and stories would circulate at dinner-tables and every-one would have a great big guffard at their expense. Just a few examples...Hill-billies..Molbo-stories (in Denmark) the Alentejanos (Portugal) etc.Actually,years back when I was studying Anthropology I took up this subject and found out that most of these stories came from the same source.During the 100 years war the soldiers hired by the various Kings of Europe would travel up through the countries,meet up and swap stories when sitting around the camp-fires.
"A person is smart. People are stupid." (IIRC, that's from "Yes, Prime Minister")
This explains the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and the raid on the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
My personal fav: I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you.
If you try to use that on MSN the censors usually flag it as hate speech.
I have that on a hoodie
Me too. Love me some Deadpool!
i know an oldie but a goodie if you're looking for insults, appearance wise; "you're a thief and a murderer; you killed a monkey and stole his face"
Monkeys are intelligent. That‘s an insult to monkeys.
Seems to me that's saying someone is ugly more than he's stupid.
Lame.
I like George Carlin's quote : Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
My father used to call stupid people in a large group, “the idiot fringe”.
They're not the fringe. They're the base.
Sadly true.
or republicans
I call them "Republicans."
Also from GC: "think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."
...or Arlo Guthrie: sittin'' on the Group W bench.
Very true,we see this over and over again. However,I have seen also some malicious comments below that I would rate as Bullying.It is easy to make fun of people who are less intelligent,have had fewer oportunities or the means to study. In the olden times there was not a country that did not have a region or group of peoples that were considered inferior/rustic/dumb and stories would circulate at dinner-tables and every-one would have a great big guffard at their expense. Just a few examples...Hill-billies..Molbo-stories (in Denmark) the Alentejanos (Portugal) etc.Actually,years back when I was studying Anthropology I took up this subject and found out that most of these stories came from the same source.During the 100 years war the soldiers hired by the various Kings of Europe would travel up through the countries,meet up and swap stories when sitting around the camp-fires.
"A person is smart. People are stupid." (IIRC, that's from "Yes, Prime Minister")
This explains the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and the raid on the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
My personal fav: I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you.
If you try to use that on MSN the censors usually flag it as hate speech.
I have that on a hoodie
Me too. Love me some Deadpool!
i know an oldie but a goodie if you're looking for insults, appearance wise; "you're a thief and a murderer; you killed a monkey and stole his face"
Monkeys are intelligent. That‘s an insult to monkeys.
Seems to me that's saying someone is ugly more than he's stupid.
Lame.