Word of the week

• numpty n. a stupid person, an idiot
• greet v. weep, cry, lament; complain; grumble
• preses n. the person who presides at a meeting etc; spokesperson, leader
• Doric n. the variety of Scots spoken in the North-East, esp. Aberdeen; the Scots language

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numpty n. a stupid person, an idiot

“numpty n. a stupid person, an idiot ”

25th June 2007

Numpty is, somewhat ironically, cannily adapting itself to a variety of new environments. In April it was voted Scotland's favourite word in a survey conducted for a children's charity, I Can, which works to develop children's speech, language and communication skills. Ashley Jensen recently used the word on the TV show Ugly Betty, and the host of Wake Up to Wogan has also found it to be of practical utility. Like the Scots themselves, Scots words have a habit of stravaigin aboot.

This is not a new phenomenon. Many of the words we take for granted as "English" words began life in Scotland, being recorded earlier in Scottish sources before they hit the mainstream. Cosy, pony, rampage, guffaw and gumption are all examples of earlier Scots words that raxed oot intae the English-speaking world. Writers like Allan Ramsay, Walter Scott and Robert Burns were often instrumental in catapulting them into wider usage and eventual acceptance in Standard English.

The origins of numpty are unclear. It may be an altered form of the word "numps", which dates back to the sixteenth century and also means "an idiot", but this is found mainly in English sources. Rather strangely, the word is only on record from the 1980s. The earliest quotation we know of is from Michael Munro's The Patter: Another Blast (1988): "How is it I get all the numpties in my class?" If you have any documented evidence for earlier use of the word, please get in touch.

Thank you to all those who responded to my query about the use of the plural form of "preses". The majority view seems to be that the plural form remains unchanged, but I have also discovered some interesting if rare uses of the plural "preseses". All responses will be added to our ongoing Word Collection and used in the revision and compilation of our Scots dictionaries.