Tool

[N2gaming]

Hey Group,
Why is the word 'Tool' exchanged for the word 'Fool' in internet forums? and also since I'm on that Q how in the world did that catch on all over the web?

Thanks

 

[TridenT]

You should use urbandictionary.com

You would realize they're different words. SIMILAR, but different!

And, how? I don't know. It's been a long time.

And, god damn it, destrekor warped me.

 

[destrekor]

What, as in, calling someone a tool?

It's not relegated to forums - it's fairly pervasive in spoken language as well. Not even entirely sure it started on the 'net, so...

 

[gorcorps]

if you don't get it, you're a tool

 

[rudeguy]

paging ns1...paging ns1


Oh wait...not the band?

Nevermind ns1. Go back to googling snorgi pics.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

It means that you are just a dense appliance to be used by someone of skill and then put away until needed again. Like a fleshlight.

 

[SMOGZINN]

It means that you are just a dense appliance to be used by someone of skill and then put away until needed again. Like a fleshlight.

No, no, like what goes into a fleshlight.

 

[destrekor]

No, no, like what goes into a fleshlight.

Well, it can kind of be both - it's a very vague word, at least in general lexicon, and has been applied as a label in a few different ways.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I've always thought that it was a phallic reference.

 

[edro]

Tool - Sober: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglVqACd1C8

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

A somewhat interesting article on this very subject:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/04/04/20730/

Using tool as a slang term is not, however, a modern Princeton invention. Tool is a word with a long history. By the 1660s, a "tool" had come to mean a person who is easily manipulated. "Which made some take him as a tool, That knaves do work with, call'd a fool," wrote Samuel Butler in 1663. An 1849 text about the history of England describes sheriffs as "tools of the government." Across the pond, in a similar vein, when the Female Labor Reform Association at Massachusetts textile mills went on strike in 1845, its resolution described the chairman as "merely a corporation machine, or tool." Perhaps this usage relates to another slang definition of the word: For centuries, "tool" has been used to mean "penis." In "Henry VIII," Shakespeare describes a foreigner who comes to the court as someone "with the great Toole."

So when you call someone a tool you are actually channeling Shakespeare.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Tool - Stairway to Heaven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJvvxEs1_pE

 

[sleep]

Tool - Sober: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglVqACd1C8

this

 

[N2gaming]

Hahaha, WOW! who would have thought!!

 

[Ns1]

paging ns1...paging ns1


Oh wait...not the band?

Nevermind ns1. Go back to googling snorgi pics.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I never understood calling someone who is stupid a tool.

Tools are useful.

 

[Joseph F]

Tool - Sober: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglVqACd1C8

Tool - Ænema http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCEeAn6_QJo

 

[davmat787]

I seem to recall using the word 'tool' to describe tool like people before the internet, in HS. Don't think it is an internet/forum specific label. Someone who is a tool is not the same as a fool, but one can be both of course, and usually are. But, they have different connotations and are not directly interchangeable.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I seem to recall using the word 'tool' to describe tool like people before the internet, in HS. Don't think it is an internet/forum specific label. Someone who is a tool is not the same as a fool, but one can be both of course, and usually are. But, they have different connotations and are not directly interchangeable.

THIS

Tool is a very old term. It just means that someone is behaving in such a way that they are not able to change their focus to soemthing else. Usually in regarsd to doing something nerdy like fixing a Guitar. Roommate being fixated on fixing guiter for 2 hours. It's Friday and room mates are waiting for him to finish up so they can go out. You would tell the guitar man "Stop being such a tool". Inferring that he is litterally a tool that is serving a specific utility at the time.

 

[rivan]

THIS

Tool is a very old term. It just means that someone is behaving in such a way that they are not able to change their focus to soemthing else. Usually in regarsd to doing something nerdy like fixing a Guitar. Roommate being fixated on fixing guiter for 2 hours. It's Friday and room mates are waiting for him to finish up so they can go out. You would tell the guitar man "Stop being such a tool". Inferring that he is litterally a tool that is serving a specific utility at the time.

That's totally not the meaning behind my usage of the word, nor was it anyone's I've known personally.

Everywhere I've ever heard it, it's been interchangeable with calling someone a dick, a prick, or a cock.

 

[Regs]

The term "Tool" as a negative adjective describing someone has been around for decades.

 

[alkemyst]

so OP who hacked your account?

 

[SphinxnihpS]

You guys all have the wrong song.

Prison Sex

 

[Ns1]

You guys all have the wrong song.

Prison Sex

A+

 

[Gibsons]