My brain feels Expandard
The exact sentence I came to post. Apparently we all think alike.
Alikeard if you ask me.
Where’s the custard?
So a lizard must be an excess of Liz?
The opposite of Thin Lizzy.
Today I learned I might be too ret.
The root means “slow”, BTW, so it does get to join that list.
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!
My utterly baseless theory on braggart is that those folks have always been so MF irritating, through history, that people pronouncing the word just tend to do so using a clipped, terse voice.
“Oh, m’lady, pray tell? T’was Kevin spinning such fanciful yarns for thee? (grits teeth) UGH, that braggart”
I don’t care if it’s true.
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”.
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.
They bring up wizard… But what about bards?
I love learning new stuff through memes.
Hazard is apparently too much danger
Un animal de bât is indeed a pack saddle animal, and bâtard is indeed a bastard so that’s pretty cool. Never realised the connection! -ard in French is also often a negative suffix, like connard which would be a… “cuntard” if you will.
-asse is the feminine variant, although there are inconsistencies, such as pétard / pétasse which are probably related but one is a firecracker, while the other is a tart (the lady kind)Rude language is always so much fun!
Mallard ducks would be very confused about this post.
They’re very much filled eith “too much” malice
So…
What is Dast?
(The word that means what we typically use Bastard for is Dastard.)
Unironically, what about Blizz?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/blizzard
Maybe “an excess of blaze (of gunfire)”?
