But the ultimate root of both words is still sophism, which has nothing foolish about it.

The foolish part would come from the influence by the supposed sopho + moros, the later of which it would seem is a predecessor to our word ‘moron’. So if you want to get technical, the ‘pure’ etymology of the word doesn’t contain any mention of idiocy, but the influenced etymology is absolutely oxymoronic.  :)

;D

Not to go on-topic or anything  ;), but "out of the loop" is a computer programming concept that emerged in the late 40’s out of Alan Turing’s pioneering work.

A ‘loop’ is a bit of logic that essentially says "Do <this> until <you’re done>." <THIS> is frequently a very complex task, and <YOU’RE DONE> is a check to see if the task needs to be done again (usually with different input data).

In nearly every interesting software system, all the action happens within a loop, usually in a loop nested in a loop nested in a loop. Code that is ‘out of the loop’ is mere housekeeping.

Thus, by inference, anyone who is ‘out of the loop’ is marginalized in a social or organizational sense. S/he is not in there where the interesting stuff goes on.

Excellant post Calthos, and welcome.:D
J.

I’m answering a really old discussion, but oh well. As a pilot I resent other disciplines borrowing aviation terms. I’m glad that “out of the loop” is not from aviation. I especially don’t like the use of “preflight” being used for anything except aviation. Doing so is trivializing what preflight truly is.

Welcome to the forum. You’re always welcome here.

FYI, Preflight is a rather common software program in the printing industry. I believe it’s an Adobe product that files are run through to prepare them for press. I’m sure it’s not as rigorous as the real thing, but you can appreciate the analogy.

Fortunatlely, presses don’t have wings and take off.

Etymology
First appearing around 1983, it is thought by some to have its roots in computer terminology.

(idiomatic) Not informed up to date; current; not kept part of the discussion.

“After three weeks off, he felt a bit out of the loop when he returned to work. “

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/out_of_the_loop

not having knowledge of or involvement in something A few people at the top knew what was going on, but everybody else was out of the loop.

Opposite of: in the loop

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+the+loop

http://www.answers.com/topic/in-the-loop