Can you think of anyone whom these describe? I have run this before, but decided re-running it would be better than a pointer you won’t follow. And as NBC used to say in the summer, “If you haven’t seen it before, it is not a rerun. (originally posted March 30, 2025)
These are times that surely call for euphemism, although the ones I propose for “stupid” are not very subtle. One certainly would try not to use these in front of the subject, unless one intended to inflict harm.

If you meet someone who intentionally inflicts harm (no names) feel free to use any of these freely in front of them or behind their backs.

The are not as good as Shakespeare’s, of which you can find lists all over the Internet. Mine, at least, have the charm of not being Elizabethan.  Several of them have been applied (unfairly, I think) to me:

• • Doesn’t have the sense that God gave geese
  • Thimblewit
  • Dummer esel
  • Dumb as a bag of rocks
  • If your brain was gunpowder you couldn’t blow your hat off.
  • Rocks with lips
  • Suffering from rectal-cranial inversion
  • Rents out head for hard vacuum experiments.

Rocks come from late brother’s time as a naval recruiter. He said some recruits were “Rocks with lips,” whom he encouraged to join the Navy. He sent the rocks elsewhere.