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Apr 27, 2026
This week’s themeGeometrical terms used figuratively This week’s words 
The Square Head, 2002
By Sacha Sosno Nice, France Photo: Paul Stevenson Previous week’s theme Words found in poetry Wordsmith Games
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargYou’re at a pizzeria. The pizzaiolo offers you two options for the same price: A: 2 x 6” pizzas B: 1 x 12” pizza Which one do you pick? No matter how you slice it, option B is the better deal. You get twice as much pizza for the same price. The diameter doubles, but the area goes up by the square. If you picked A, sleeping through high-school geometry costs you only some pizza. But innumeracy https://wordsmith.org/words/innumerate.html in high places can lead to policies that are not merely silly, but unsafe. Take US Senator Ron Johnson, who calls himself a “numbers guy”. He compared raw numbers to argue that ivermectin is safer than Tylenol. But that is not how it works. That would be like declaring chain saws are safer than Legos because fewer toddlers are involved in chain-saw accidents. And do not get me started on climate-change denial. Senator Jim Inhofe once displayed a snowball in the US Senate as supposed proof against global warming. Long-term climate trends versus short-term weather fluctuations? Why bother with such trifles when you can wave a snowball and call it science? One cold day does not cancel a warming planet. Anyway, back to geometry. This week I have featured five terms drawn from geometrical shapes: three with square in them, three with circle. Yes, I’m the word guy, but I can also count. squarehead
PRONUNCIATION:
(SKWAIR-hed)
MEANING:
noun: 1. An honest person; a non-criminal. 2. A stupid person. ETYMOLOGY:
From square, from Latin exquadrare (to square) + head, from Old English
heafod (top of the body). Earliest documented use: 1890.
NOTES:
This word has taken some sharply different turns. In Australian
criminal slang, a squarehead is an honest, law-abiding person. Elsewhere,
the word has been used for a stupid person. In the past, it has also been
used as a slur, especially for Germans, Dutch people, and Scandinavians.
Also see lunkhead and bonehead.
USAGE:
“I’ve never really mixed with squareheads and normal people.” Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read; For the Term of His Unnatural Life: Chopper 4; Pan Macmillan Australia; 2012. “‘[Miguel Angel Martin] is a little crazy man who has no chance of stopping the event going on. He is what some people might call a squarehead,’ [Seve Ballesteros] fumed.” How Can Little Man Martin Stop Cup Says Seve Ballesteros; The Mirror (London, UK); Sep 5, 1997. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles,
there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to
prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court,
recognized by all nations, will settle international differences. -Ulysses
S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President (27 Apr 1822-1885)
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