Why hello there, sumptuous syntax suitors, and welcome to another jolly episode of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents. I must advise you, kind listener, to not use today’s word in polite society, and I hope that indeed you shan’t have any use for it, as today’s word is: foppotee.

Foppotee is a word from the 1600s meaning ‘simpleton’. A common example is ‘What a pitiful foppotee he was, always oblivious to our jeers!’ The word has fallen out of popularity, and its origins are unknown, however I personally deem it worthy enough to be brought back, wouldn’t you? (In well acquainted society, of course.) The word ‘simpleton’ can be defined as ‘a person lacking common sense’ and comes from ‘simple’ and ‘ton’, as in a surname. It is also attributed to an abbreviation ‘simple Tony’ or ‘Anthony’ according to the Grose 1811 Dictionary. The word ‘simple’ comes from Middle English ‘symple’, from Old French ‘simple’, which is in turn from the Latin ‘simplex’. ‘Simplex’, has the literal meaning ‘onefold’, as opposed to the Latin ‘duplex’ meaning ‘double’ or literally ‘twofold’. The word ‘simplex’ comes from ‘semel’ meaning ‘the same’ and ‘plicō’ meaning ‘I fold’. I hope I took that far enough back for you. You’re welcome.

The word ‘simple’, ironically enough, is not simple in terms of its definitions; in fact it has several different definitions including: ‘Uncomplicated; taken by itself, with nothing added’; ‘Without ornamentation; plain’; ‘Free from duplicity; guileless, innocent, straightforward’;  ‘Undistinguished in social condition; of no special rank’; and of course, the relevant definition to today’s word, ‘Feeble-minded; foolish’. In mathematics, ‘simple’ refers to ‘having no normal subgroup’, and in chemistry, ‘consisting of one single substance, uncompounded’. Another definition refers to steam engines, where simple means ‘Using steam only once in its cylinders, in contrast to a compound engine, where steam is used more than once in high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders.’

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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