September 3, 2008 Edition

Grandparents' corner Sadie King (front, from left), four months, Emma Miller, five, Reid King, two-and-a-half; John King (back, from left), four, and Kailyn Miller, nine, are the grandchildren of Gary and Annetta Baum of Pineville, La., and the great-grandchildren of Novene Rogers of Hoxie. John, Sadie and Reid are the children of J.C. and Rebecah King of Plainville, Texas. Emma and Kailyn are the children of Chuck and Kristetta Miller of Pineville, La.

What's in
a name

My curiosity was piqued so I decided to find out more about the name. It turns out that Nimrod is Hebrew and means mighty hunter. I definitely had a problem reconciling that to the current use of nimrod.

How does a name go from meaning mighty hunter to a word that means mighty stupid? It didn't take me long to find the culprit. It turned out I can blame none other than Bugs Bunny for Nimrod's fall from grace.

Bugs, who wasn't above a little sophisticated humor on occasion, often found himself in the gun sights of Elmer Fudd. Elmer is as inept a hunter as can be found and Bugs often referred to him as a poor Nimrod. Bugs was of course comparing him to the mighty hunter and his descriptive use of the name was inferring that Elmer was no Nimrod. For those who became fans of the cartoon somehow the name was eventually translated to mean dumb or stupid. continued....