Infospigot Word Challenge

Word challenge! Sound like a game. But it’s not. It’s just an opportunity to say (write) the word “hooplehead.”

What’s that?

I encountered it watching the DVDs of the first season of HBO’s “Deadwood.” Highly recommended for its fine writing and acting, though it features extreme violence and a variety of vile behavior — the profanity is the least of it — that makes it unsuitable for family viewing (unless you want the kids to turn out like me). But I digress.

Hoopleheads: It’s the term the evil (or perhaps just ultra-misunderstood) Deadwood saloonkeeper and master manipulator Al Swearengen uses for rubes, yahoos, and general riffraff. It’s a fine, descriptive word — it could find employment describing many of our red-state brothers and sisters who voted to keep our incumbent president in office for another four years, for instance; or for the incumbent himself, for that matter.

Hoopleheads.