Information AboutIdiot |
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The word is a Cognate in German , Slovenian , and Swedish . HISTORY It was originally used in Ancient Greek City-state s to refer to people who were overly concerned with their own self-interest and ignored the needs of the community. Declining to take part in public life, such as (semi-)democratic government of the Polis (city state, e.g. Athenian Democracy ) was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are " Stupid ." In Hellenistic Egypt , ''idiotès'' was a term for soldier (etymologically parallel to that word which derives from sold 'pay'), derived from the ''idios logos'', the royal treasury that paid them. In modern English usage, the terms "idiot" and "idiocy" describe an extreme folly or stupidity, its symptoms (foolish or stupid utterance or deed). In psychology, it is a historical term for the state or condition now called Profound Mental Retardation . HANDICAP In 19th and early 20th-century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very severe Mental Retardation or a very low IQ level, as a sufferer of Cretinism , defining idiots as people whose IQ were below 20 (with a standard deviation of 16); Mongolian idiot was applied to sufferers of Down Syndrome . In current medical classification, these people are now said to have profound mental retardation, and the word "idiot" is no longer used as a scientific term. USE AS AN ABUSE In modern English and other languages, idiot is also a derogatory term used to Insult , usually meaning "You are stupid." For example, a group of drunks Disturbing The Peace could be referred to as "idiots." However, use of "idiot" to refer to people who are genuinely mentally retarded would generally be considered offensive. A few authors have used "idiot" characters in novels, plays and poetry. Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else ( Allegory ). Examples of such usage are William Faulkner's '' The Sound And The Fury '' and William Wordsworth's '' The Idiot Boy ''. Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters. The most common imbrication between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's '' King Lear ''. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel '' The Idiot '', the idiocy of the main character, Prince Myshkin, is attributed more to his honesty, trustfulness, kindness, and humility, than to a lack of intellectual ability. This somewhat parallels the use of the word "idiot" in colloquial Russian to characterize a naive optimist and the "do-gooder." OTHER USES
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