Trending: ‘Neanderthal’

President Biden's comments on the lifting of public health restrictions in Texas and Mississippi on March 3, 2021 included the use of a colorful word to describe what he considers to be unscientific and inadvisable decisions on the part of the governors of those states:

The last thing — the last thing — we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.

The scientific use of Neanderthal is very specific:

an extinct hominid (Homo neanderthalensis synonym H. sapiens neanderthalensis) known from skeletal remains found from western Europe to central Asia that lived from about 30,000 to 200,000 years ago and had a stocky, heavily muscled build and an elongated skull with a prominent supraorbital ridge, receding forehead, and undeveloped chin

It can be used figuratively to mean "a person with extremely old-fashioned and outdated ideas and opinions," and, both figuratively and informally, it means "a crude or brutish person."

Neanderthal derives from the discovery in 1856 of remains in a cave above Germany's Neander Valley, and anthropologists used the geographical name to create a scientific name for this species of human ancestors.

Because Neanderthal derives from a German place name, it is usually capitalized.

The -th- can be pronounced in the English manner (as it would be in thaw) or can be pronounced as a simple /t/ sound, closer to the original German. Both are common, standard, and correct in English.

Joe Biden owes Neanderthals an apology. https://t.co/aINA9cvSHI

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) March 3, 2021