
In
U.S. English slang, egghead is an
epithet
An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...
used to refer to
intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
s or people considered out-of-touch with ordinary people and lacking in realism, common sense, sexual interests, etc. on account of their intellectual interests. A similar, though not necessarily pejorative, British term is ''
boffin
Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific research and development. A "boffin" was viewed by some in the regular military or government services as odd, quirky or peculiar, th ...
''. The term ''egghead'' reached its peak currency during the 1950s, when vice-presidential candidate
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
used it against
Democratic Presidential nominee
Adlai Stevenson Adlai Stevenson may refer to:
* Adlai Stevenson I
Adlai Ewing Stevenson (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) was an American politician and diplomat who served as the 23rd vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897 under President Gr ...
. It was used by Bill Clinton advisor
Paul Begala
Paul Edward Begala (born May 12, 1961) is an American political consultant and political commentator, best known as the former advisor to President Bill Clinton.
Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried 33 ...
in the 2008 presidential campaign to describe Senator
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
's supporters when he said, "Obama can't win with just the eggheads and African-Americans."
Origins
In his
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
-winning historical essay on U.S. anti-intellectualism, historian
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier historic ...
wrote: "During the campaign of 1952, the country seemed to be in need of some term to express that disdain for intellectuals which had by then become a self-conscious motif in U.S. politics. The word ''egghead'' was originally used without invidious associations, but quickly assumed them, and acquired a much sharper tone than the traditional ''
highbrow
Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, "highbrow" is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The term, first recorded in 1875, draws its metonymy from the pseud ...
''. Shortly after the campaign was over,
Louis Bromfield
Louis Bromfield (December 27, 1896 – March 18, 1956) was an American writer and conservationist. A bestselling novelist in the 1920s, he reinvented himself as a farmer in the late 1930s and became one of the earliest proponents of sustainabl ...
, a popular novelist of right-wing political persuasion, suggested that the word might someday find its way into dictionaries as follows:
''Egghead:'' A person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the protégé of a professor. Essentially confused in thought and immersed in mixture of sentimentality and violent evangelism. A doctrinaire supporter of Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-U.S. ideas of democracy and liberalism. Subject to the old-fashioned philosophical morality of Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
which frequently leads him into jail or disgrace. A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.
In their ''Dictionary of American Slang'' (1960; 2nd supplemented ed. 1975),
Harold Wentworth and
Stuart Berg Flexner
Stuart Berg Flexner (1928–1990) was a lexicographer, editor and author, noted for his books on the origins of American words and expressions, including ''I Hear America Talking'' and ''Listening to America''; as co-editor of the '' Dictionary of ...
cite two earlier meanings of ''egghead'', one referring to baldness, the other to stupidity. Wentworth and Flexner note that the meaning under discussion here was "
p. during presidential campaign of 1952 when the supporters of Adlai Stevenson, Democratic candidate, were called eggheads. Thus orig. the term carried the connotation of 'politically minded' and 'liberal'; today its application is more general. May have originated in ref. to the high forehead of Mr. Stevenson or of the pop. image of an academician" (p. 171).
Philip K. Dick claimed in a 1977 interview that, while researching his Nazi-themed novel ''
The Man in the High Castle
''The Man in the High Castle'' is an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1962, which imagines a world in which the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1 ...
'', he discovered that an equivalent term (''Eierkopf'') had been used by the
Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; or 'Storm Troopers') was the original paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party of Germany. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and early 1930s. I ...
because "when they attacked people who were defenseless,
..their skulls cracked readily against the pavement".
See also
*
Atel (slang)
Ā̃tel () is Bengali term referring to a person who is proficient in academic practice but lacks practical knowledge, or someone who pretends to be intelligent.
Use
According to Indian author Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri, winner of the Sahitya Akad ...
, another derogatory term for intellectuals, in
Bengali culture
The culture of Bengal defines the cultural heritage of the Bengali people native to eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, mainly what is today Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, where they form the dominant ...
.
*
Geek
The word ''geek'' is a slang term originally used to describe Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. In th ...
, a related term for an obsessive enthusiast
*
Nerd
A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly t ...
, another (sometimes) derogatory term for intellectuals, in
American culture
The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and Social norm, norms, including forms of Languages of the United States, speech, American literature, literature, Music of the United States, music, Visual a ...
.
*
Obrazovanshchina
Obrazovanshchina (, 'educationdom', 'educaties', 'smatterers') is a Russian ironical, derogatory term for a category of people with superficial education who lack the higher ethics of an educated person.
The term was introduced by Alexander Solz ...
, another derogatory term for intellectuals, in
Russian culture
Russian culture ( rus, Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii, kʊlʲˈturə rɐˈsʲiɪ) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and both Eastern cultu ...
.
References
Further reading
* Lecklider, Aaron. ''Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture'' (2013
Excerpt and text search** Rubin, J. S. ''Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture.''(2014).
{{Authority control
Anti-intellectualism
Pejorative terms for people
Adlai Stevenson II