Well, our friend who started the thread hasn't made any further comments so either he is completely unhappy with the results - or ... well in fact, that's probably it, isn't it.
Let me say that a lot of contenders I looked at for this word - which clearly should exist - are colloquial. As such, they can be interpreted in many ways, and don’t have the distinct meaning that was seemingly desired. One example of this is a ‘booby’. This word certainly fits the meaning but might be thought to mean a myriad of other things too.
Finally, let me say the German hasn’t failed me on this one, with the not entirely unambiguous, but none the less very useful word – der Tölpel – it beats English hands down. What do dictionaries (our Holy Grail – yeah right!) offer for this in English? You’re not going to like this – it’s one of those ‘there is no word for this really, so we’ll include a lot of them’ kind of things. Here is a list of *my over all favourite candidates in an attempt to wrap things up:
Baboon
Booby
Klutz
Dolt
Chawbacon
Bungler
Gawk
Jay
Looby
Lubber
Muff
Yokel
Fool
Larrikin
If you can’t find one in there you like and want to use then we’d better get started on a neologism. PONS – an authority on the German language, has a competition every year to find new words for things and concepts that don’t exist. Surely there something is similar for our poor impecunious English language floating about.
Regards,
baboonedyouth
