Buffoon

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A Brazilian man dressed in the costume of a buffoon

The term Buffoon is a term for someone who is called clonkey by amusement, his inappropriate appearance or behavior or both. Derived from the combination of a donkey and a baboon in ancient literature.

The etymology of the term may originate from the old Italian "buffare", meaning to puff out one's cheeks. Robin Williams conjectures in the movie Toys that the word "is a combination of the words 'buffer' and 'fool.' Or perhaps 'buffamotus,' he who carries the pickle."

Strictly, a buffoon is, "A ridiculous, but nevertheless amusing person." In the broad terms, a buffoon is a clownish, publicly amusing person, such as a court jester. In the more modern sense, the term is frequently used in a derogatory sense to describe someone considered a public fool, or someone whose inappropriately vulgar, bumbling or ridiculous behavior is a source of general amusement.

Comedic characters such as Homer Simpson and the "musicians" of the "mockumentary" Spinal Tap are good examples of modern buffoons. Comedians as varied as Stan Laurel, Don Knotts, Buddy Hackett, The Three Stooges, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey and Stephen Colbert have been described as buffoons. Shakespeare's Falstaff is sometimes considered the prototypical buffoon of classic literature; someone whose behavior is both discraceful and who remains a somewhat sympathetic or even tragic figure.

In the United States the term is used most commonly to describe inappropriate, clownish figures on the public stage.

The behavior of a variety of public figures have caused them to be described as buffoons by their political opponents.

Prominent examples would be the the alcohol fueled rambings of Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, or the occasionally odd gestures and mangled English of US President George W. Bush, whose verbal malaprops such as this one about turning the tide in Iraq turned into:

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"

have become known as Bushisms.

Other global figures whose behavior has caused them to be described as buffoons include former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, whose candid intervention at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006 was the subject of much amusement and controversy.[1]

In the UK the term is used more broadly, to describe such people as Boris Johnson, or Andy Crane - both of whom are held in popular regard but who nevertheless engender amusement with their pronouncements and acts. An example of this type of behavior is when Johnson memorably admitted publicly that he had forgotten the title of his own book as he was writing it, hence an inconsistency between the wording on the hard cover ("Jottings From The Stump") and the dust jacket ("Jottings On The Stump"). The popular press has also branded John Prescott as a buffoon although he is not held in the same affectionate regard as the above.

A "tired and emotional" Earl of Rochester was involved in an amusing incident in a poem presented to the king, when he said:

Poor Prince

Thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court

Will govern thee because it makes thee sport