Nimrod: Playful Insult? High Compliment? Or Iconic Camper?

Irv Oslin

June 2

Depends on who you ask

1967 Postcard depicting the Camelot Deluxe model. Ah, such heady days!

For my latest Times-Gazette column, I invited Facebook friends to comment on the meaning of "nimrod." I warned them that their answers and their names (or Fakebook names) might be included when it came time to post the column on my blog.

I had recently learned through my friend and fellow entomology nerd Nikki McConnell that "nimrod" originally meant great hunter and not what most of us assumed. More remarkably, I learned that the contemporary slang definition — doofus — originated from a Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Bugs sarcastically called Elmer Fudd a nimrod. Bugs was making fun of his questionable hunting skills and gullibility.

So, here are a few of the responses. My comments are in square brackets.

Randi Pokladnik commented:

"My dad used the term. He basically interchanged it with idiot. I find it comes into play when discussing my neighbor, who power washed his lawn. That was last year. This year he sprayed it with Roundup … it's dead now. He's a nimrod.

[I'm trying to visualize what it looked like after the powerwashing.]

Katie Pheanis also cited an example from the world of landscaping:

"The landscaper that only cut the front of the bushes, leaving me with a yard full of mullet shrubs."

Reht Egas responded with a bit of self-deprecating humor:

"Per my dad, 'Don't be a nimrod,' when asking ridiculous questions just to get him all riled up … and 'Are you a nimrod?' when I told him that one time I got my thumb stuck in a Pepsi bottle and it took two hours to get it out."

[My response to Reht: "Which begs the question how did you finally extract your thumb from the Pepsi bottle?"]

To which Reht replied:

"The right combination of ice, heat, and a bit of pain! I was just afraid to take a hammer to the bottle. I envisioned blood spurting all over the place."

Most folks who responded, like Scott Freese, gave examples:

"The people that don't know what they want to order after standing in line staring at a menu for 10 minutes."

Fellow photographer Clint Hardin knew what the term really meant:

"Nimrod was Noah's great grandson … a mighty warrior before the Lord, instrumental in founding Babylon."

Then there was my friend and sometimes fellow paddler Travis Simkins:

"Johnny Nimrod. A quirky character that used to own an RV sales outfit, and a Swiss country store, east of Wooster a couple miles from where I grew up."

Travis shared Johnny's obit:

https://www.aublefuneralhome.com/obituaries/John-P-Johnny-Nimrod-Mast?obId=12397883&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1JV4N4dJFTfeYdyQhvLzJBauYU7DsSj2jq4DjrAfls1DfhvelMPjhf36Y_aem_AbNOA4CmyXTPdYP4bu_VQhBs6DE7JkZRVQ5t5SVdShMhBK6spY8hLkVPOIGPqXUEshoYFhmFWmInehB0sPo8i8nJ

[This brought back memories of seeing Nimrod popup campers as a kid. For some reason, back then, the peculiar name didn't send up any red flags, even though I had seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon and accepted Bugs' revised definition of nimrod. Of course I had to Google Nimrod trailers and did learn that there is a Facebook page devoted to Nimrod aficionados.]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/355486411193127

I guess it's one thing to be a nimrod, but quite something else to be a Nimrod lover.

The things you learn in this business.