by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/09/07 04:31 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/09/07/8930421.aspx
One to file under the "I thought I was blind all those years until I suddenly realized my hat was two sizes too large" category. :-)
In the past I described in blogs like Some blog boggles and a few disclaimers my use of the term moronic wingnut and how some people really didn't like the term.
It turns out that at least one of the reasons might be the Safirishly suggested connection between the term wingnut and the extreme right wing side of politics.
Now although I did repost the Wanker-wingnut continuum, where the term wingnut is clearly used in this way, my mind was on something else entirely when I started using with the term.
(By the way, it looks like The Poor Man is back, though all of the old content is gone. Though still worth the read if that is your taste!)
For me it dated back to those RPS days I mentioned before.
It was a shift where someone in the trucks was doing something particularly stupid.
Not the ordinary kind of stupid one might expect from the type of person who voluntarily agrees to unload packages inside tandem trailers getting up to high temperatures for four hours for wages that really did not make it worth the time.
I mean really stupid stuff.
Like sending hazardous packages up the belt which led to a downward incline where packages would slide down to people sorting them out by destination.
This was NEVER supposed to be done, since if such a package turned out to have a leak, then some kind of hazardous substance would be leaking down on one of the sorters, which would be very dangerous.
Anyway, one day someone kept doing this, and Jason (the guy wearing a tie and supervising the shift), yelled down to the guy who was doing this an who thought it was such a hoot "Will ya cut it out, ya wingnut?!?" and for me, in this warehouse from the early '90's, the use of the word wingnut was born.
In a completely non-partisan way.
Anyway, the other day someone suggested to me that this kind of a read of the term wingnut might be why someone took the term moronic wingnut as being so offensive. You know, if they thought that I was dragging down republicans or something.
Just for the record, I swear that my usage pre-dates the bloggers phenomenon Willian Safire pointed out and that it is non-partisan and really an equal opportunity kind of an opportunity. Regardless of age, race, gender, political status, sexual orientation, sexual preference, hair color, eye color, or any other openly or covertly distinguishing feature.
It is an equal opportunity slam for when people misquote me. :-)
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# orcmid on 7 Sep 2008 11:03 AM:
Ah well, considering that the wingnuts (political variety) refer to these parts as Kiev County and consider the other political variety to be moon bats, what the heck ...
# bryan on 8 Sep 2008 3:18 AM:
My earliest familiarity with wingnut goes back to early 90s Salt Lake City where a Wingnut was someone that was on welfare because of mental health issues but not suffering psychosis, just generally somewhat weird.
# sam i am on 8 Sep 2008 3:24 AM:
i thought a wingnut was a cute older guy who blogs obsessively.
# Michael S. Kaplan on 8 Sep 2008 3:47 AM:
Two problems there, Samantha:
But thanks as always for the kind words....
sam i am on 8 Sep 2008 4:55 AM:
do the people around you believe your bullshit michael?
do you?
Michael S. Kaplan on 23 Dec 2010 1:30 AM:
Yes. And maybe.