{"id":17630,"date":"2017-05-04T16:59:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T21:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=17630"},"modified":"2022-06-26T05:10:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T10:10:20","slug":"moron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/moron\/","title":{"rendered":"Moron"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Calling someone a moron would be offensive, maybe even fighting words. It derived from Greek<\/a> for stupid or foolish, and later came down through Latin with a similar meaning, then finally passed along to modern languages. I knew it retained that meaning when it came to English, certainly more widely recognized than the colloquial use of something like Nimrod<\/a>. However, it couldn’t mean the same thing universally across other languages. Still, it surprised me to see a Moron in Haiti. They wouldn’t name a town Moron unless it meant something other than moron would they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moron, Grand’Anse, Haiti<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Moron<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I spotted Moron (map<\/a>) as I researched the ladylike place<\/a> of Dame Marie, both of them found in Haiti’s Grand’Anse department. Very little information existed about either location. I did learn that people from Moron call themselves Moronais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately Haitians had more to be concerned about than posting information about obscure settlements on the Intertubes. Hurricane Matthew devastated the entire Southern Peninsula. At least 85 people died in Moron in a situation described as apocalyptic<\/a>. Only 25,000 people lived in Moron so the deaths represented a horrific toll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagined Moron must have meant something different in French or Creole although I couldn’t figure it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mor\u00f3n de la Frontera, Spain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Moron<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Spanish translation offered better possibilities. Mor\u00f3n de la Frontera in Seville seemed to be the most noteworthy example out of several morons in the Spanish speaking world (map<\/a>). Mor\u00f3n meant Hummock, as in a little knoll or mound. Alternately, people of Moorish ancestry dominated the area around Mor\u00f3n de la Frontera from the 8th through 13th Centuries. That possibly influenced<\/a> the name as well. The Frontera portion of its name referred to its placement on the border with Grenada. Mor\u00f3n sat on a frontier during this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mor\u00f3n, Argentina<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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