Felix the Cat and Poindexter

Posted by Word Camel on March 02, 2003

In Reply to: Poindexter posted by ESC on March 02, 2003

Fans of the cartoon Felix the Cat will remember, his genius nephew Poindexter. (How can a cat have a human nephew?) Felix was created in the early part of the 20th century by cartoonist, Otto Messmer. His protege, Joe Oriolo added more characters to the cartoon cast - probably in the 20's. Poindexter was one of these. I'm unsure whether 'poindexter' came to mean a nerd because of the cartoon character or whether it existed as a term prior to the Felix cartoons. I suspect the latter. In any case poindexter used to describe a nerd is probably much older than the 1980's.

Ps. Sorry to delete the thread but I thought it might be too unwieldy with the image.