Y for Yahoo

The definition of “yahoo” according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary  is: n. a boorish, crass, or stupid person (Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels).

I grew up thinking yahoo was a word cowboys yelled when they were happy or drunk.  Then I read Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift in school and found out Swift had used the word to refer to another group of people, and it was no longer an expression of happy and/or drunk cowboys.  I liked it.

I began to notice which persons I encountered might be true yahoos.  People I met that seemed “boorish” were never that boorish to me because I never spent more than a few minutes with them.  Why would I?  Why would anyone?  They offer nothing but requiring one to bear witness to their ego trips.  They are so obvious in their boorishness that they are easy to avoid.  Truly, I so adeptly sidestep them that I never bother to tag them as a “yahoo.”

I started watching what people might be yahoos by virtue of being crass.  I can honestly state that I have few associations with what I would call “crass” beings.  That is probably because I hold to the philosophy that crass is different by the way one looks upon it or experiences it.  I might find someone crass who picks their nose in public while you simply find the act disgusting.  But you may find someone who belches unchecked at a formal dinner party quite crass and I would probably laugh aloud at their audacity.  No, crassness would be hard to pin down in a yahoo depending on who is subjected to it and their beliefs as to what being crass is or is not.  Agreed?

The last qualification listed to be a “yahoo” is being stupid.  THAT certain characteristic I know about and have seen enough times to call out “You  YAHOO!”  to a person.  One can write off comments and actions to ignorance for a while.  Or claim there are extenuating circumstances surrounding actions or words.  And then… when there are no more excuses to cover these continued actions and statements—well—it becomes stupidity.  That warrants the label YAHOO.  And unfortunately, Stupid does exist, and THERE is the Yahoo.

As Forrest Gump said in the movie by the same title, “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’ll get.”  Here’s to the Yahoos.  They are alive and well in the 21st century.  And that’s my take on it and my truth.  God save us all from Yahoos.  As the song says, “They’re here… they’re there… they're everywhere…so beware!”