Define “knucklehead”. A knucklehead is someone who …
Nuance
It’s an insult with some nuance to it.
First, the origin of the word is not clear, with numerous, possibly fanciful, explanations. Its origin will be listed as 1890s or earlier, or possibly 1930s. Widespread use seems universally attributed to the U.S. Army Air Force use of it (as Private Knucklehead) in WWII posters (reference).
To me, first, if you call somebody a knucklehead, you don’t mean that they are evil. Or bad in the sense of immoral.
It’s that they’re dumb.
But mere dumbness isn’t enough. It’s that they did something that you think was … dumb.
Further, it’s not a grave insult.
But it’s not kidding, either, except between close friends. It’s meant to convey low opinion.
And it’s not-at-all like actually cursing somebody. For example, knucklehead and son-of-a-bitch are not even remotely interchangeable.
Insert bad segue here
I associate the word with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, as in the advice, “Don’t drive like a knucklehead.” ( The Magliozzi brothers, Tom and Ray, hosts of Car Talk.) Although their catch phrase substituted “my brother” for “knucklehead”.
Before that, I’d have to go back to Moe Howard/Three Stooges for consistent use of the word “knucklehead”. Your-memories-may-vary.
Speaking of which, I got trapped behind an ultra-slow truck at a traffic light yesterday afternoon, trying to make a left turn. I ended up missing the light, owing to the unexpectedly glacial pace of acceleration of the seemingly-empty truck/trailer ahead of me.
The truck driver is not the knucklehead. I think. Nor was I. Nor the person behind me.
The knucklehead was guy in the SUV who “shot the light”. That is, came barreling down an empty turn lane at speed, drove through the solidly-red turn arrow at (I’d guess) 30 MPH, took that broad left turn about as fast as it can be taken, then got into a brief honk-fest on the far side of the intersection.
Honkee or honker, I am unsure which.
I had a minute or two to ponder the hard-charging SUV, as I sat at that light, waiting to make that left turn.
During my two-minute time out, at first, it was merely annoying that I got (slightly) penalized for obeying the law, and that the SUV was rewarded for breaking it. And, separately, I felt stupid for pulling in behind the slow truck in the first place. (Though, to all appearances, it was a deadheading semi that should have had no problem accelerating.)
But eventually it dawned on me that the two-minute reduction in travel time came at the price of driving like a knucklehead. He was two minutes ahead of me in yesterday’s traffic. So I lost. But I hope to God I never, ever drive like that guy. Whoever it was.
In the end, maybe “physically dangerous” is the nuance that I was missing from my definition of knucklehead.
To me, a knucklehead maneuver is something that stupidly risks physical harm if it fails.
So it’s not that today’s SUV driver was evil. And he did not, in fact, kill anybody. He was just being a knucklehead.
Some fraction of drivers are going to drive like knuckleheads. That’s just the way it is.
