mumpsimus

mumpsimus
 
[muhmp-suh-muhs]

 
noun: a person who insists on doing things in an incorrect way
 
Explanation

 
A mumpsimus is someone who clings to a mistaken way of doing things, even after the error has been pointed out. This silly-sounding word comes from a story about a priest who kept saying the wrong word during Mass. When stubbornness stands in the way of change, you may be dealing with a true mumpsimus.

 
Example: Even after being corrected, the mumpsimus continued to write "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes."


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Mumpsimus
Mumpsimus and sumpsimus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mumpsimus (/;m;mps;m;s/ MUHMP-sih-m;s) is a "traditional custom obstinately adhered to however unreasonable it may be",[1] or "someone who obstinately clings to an error, bad habit or prejudice, even after the foible has been exposed and the person humiliated; also, any error, bad habit, or prejudice clung to in this fashion".[2] The term originates in the story of a priest using the nonsense word mumpsimus instead of the Latin sumpsimus when giving mass, and refusing to be corrected on the matter. The word may refer to either the speaker or their habit.

Over time, the contrasting term sumpsimus came into use. To Henry VIII, a sumpsimus is a correction that is unnecessarily litigious or argumentative, but John Burgon used the term for corrections that may be good but are not as important as others.

Origin
The term originates from an apocryphal story about a poorly educated Catholic priest saying Latin mass who, in reciting the postcommunion prayer Quod ore sumpsimus, Domine (meaning: 'What we have received in the mouth, Lord'), substitutes the non-word mumpsimus, perhaps as a mondegreen. After being made aware of his mistake, he nevertheless persisted with his erroneous version, whether from stubbornness, force of habit, or refusing to believe he was mistaken.[3][4]


The Renaissance humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam may have coined the word.
The story was told by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) in a letter he wrote in August 1516 to Henry Bullock.[5][6] Erasmus used it as an analogy with those who refused to accept that Novum Instrumentum omne, his edition of the Greek New Testament, corrected errors in the Latin Vulgate. The English diplomat Richard Pace (1482–1536) included a variant in his 1517 work De Fructu qui ex Doctrina Percipitur, where the priest was English and had been saying mumpsimus for thirty years when corrected.[7] While Pace's book (written in Latin) is credited by the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as the origin of mumpsimus,[8] Pace acknowledged his borrowing in a 1517 letter to Erasmus.[9] "Mumpsimus and sumpsimus" became proverbial among Protestants in the early English Reformation.[10]

Usage
Mumpsimus

William Tyndale may have been the first to use the word in an English-language book.
Mumpsimus soon entered the language as a cant word widely used by 16th-century writers.[11] In William Tyndale's 1530 book Practice of Prelates, the word was used in the sense of a stubborn opponent to Tyndale's views. He said that the men whom Cardinal Wolsey had asked to find reasons why Catherine of Aragon was not truly the wife of King Henry VIII of England were "all lawyers, and other doctors, mumpsimuses of divinity".[12] Sir Thomas Elyot in 1531 in The Book of the Governor explains why he uses the term good courage instead of magnanimity thus: "this worde Magnanimitie beinge yet straunge, as late borowed out of the latyne, shall nat content all men, and specially them whome nothing contenteth out of their accustomed Mumpsimus, I will aduenture to put for Magnanimitie a worde more familiar, callynge it good courage".[13][11]

Eugene T. Maleska, 1970s editor of The New York Times crossword puzzle, received "dozens of letters" after "mumpsimus" appeared as an answer; he had felt that "it was time to revive the obsolete noun".[14] A. Leslie Derbyshire applied it in a 1981 management science book to managers who know how to do a better job but choose not to.[4] Garner's Modern English Usage notes that the word could describe George W. Bush because of his persistent habit of pronouncing "nuclear" as "nucular", despite the error being widely reported.[15]

Mumpsimus and sumpsimus
In his speech at the State Opening of Parliament on Christmas Eve 1545, Henry VIII said:[16]

I see and hear daily, that you of the clergy preach one against another, teach, one contrary to another, inveigh one against another, without charity or discretion. Some be too stiff in their old mumpsimus, other be too busy and curious in their new sumpsimus. Thus, all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none do preach, truly and sincerely, the word of God, according as they ought to do.

Peter Heylin refers to the king's saying in his 1631 The History of St. George of Cappadocia when he talks of "those self-conceited ones which are so stiffe—as King Harry used to say—in their new sumpsimus..."[7] Hugh Latimer (1487–1555) used the term in two sermons he preached in 1552, saying that "[w]hen my neighbour is taught, and knoweth the truth, and will not believe it, but will abide in his old mumpsimus..." and again: "Some be so obstinate in their old mumpsimus, that they cannot abide the true doctrine of God."[17]

In an 1883 polemic on errors in translations of the Christian Bible, John Burgon says, "If men prefer their 'mumpsimus' to our 'sumpsimus', let them by all means have it: but pray let them keep their rubbish to themselves—and at least leave our SAVIOUR's words alone."[18]

References

Look up mumpsimus or sumpsimus in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Citations
 Scarlett & Roland 1972, p. 236.
 Elster 2006, p. 29.
 Leighton & Leighton 2003, p. 39.
 Derbyshire 1981, p. 258.
 Marshall 2001, p. 513.
 Desiderius Erasmus; Roger Aubrey; Baskerville Mynors; Douglas Ferguson; Scott Thomson (1974). "Letter 456: to Henry Bullock". The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 446 to 593, 1516-1517. Vol. 4. University of Toronto Press. p. 46. ISBN 9780802053664.
 Hall 1873, p. 137.
 Bradley, Henry, ed. (1908). Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 6: M–N (1st ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 764. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
 Marshall 2001, p. 514.
 Marshall 2001.
 Marshall 2001, p. 515.
 Marshall 2001, p. 516.
 Elyot 1883, pp. 288–289.
 Maleska, Eugene T. (28 October 1979). "Confessions Of A Crossword Editor". The New York Times. p. SM24. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
 Garner 2009, p. 3709.
 Dodd 1839, p. 453.
 Foxe 1859, p. 141.
 Burgon 1883, p. 218.
Sources
Burgon, John William (1883). The Revision Revised: Three Articles Reprinted from the Quarterly Review. 1. The New Greek Text. 2. The New English Version. 3. Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory, to which is Added a Reply to Bishop Ellicott's Pamphlet in Defence of the Revisers and Their Greek Text of the New Testament ... J. Murray. ISBN 9780790533674. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
Derbyshire, A. Leslie (1 January 1981). Mastering Management: Practical Procedures for Effective Business Control. Cedar Fort. ISBN 978-0-88290-159-6. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
Dodd, Charles (1839). "Appendix No.XLIX". In Tierney, Mark Aloysius (ed.). Church history of England from the commencement of the sixteenth century to the revolution in 1688. Vol. 1. Charles Dolman. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
Elster, Charles Harrington (22 February 2006). The Big Book Of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-42315-6. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
Elyot, Thomas (1883). "Of Magnanimitie, whiche may be named valyaunt courage". In Croft, Henry Herbert Stephen (ed.). The Boke Named The Gouernour. Vol. II. London: Kegan Paul, Trench.
Erasmus, Desiderius (1977). The Correspondence of Erasmus Letters 446 to 593. University of Toronto.
Foxe, John (1859). Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, Chiefly from the Manuscripts of John Foxe the Martyrologist: With Two Contemporary Biographies of Archbishop Cranmer ... Camden Society. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
Garner, Bryan (2009-07-28). Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987462-0. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
Hall, Fitzedward (1873). Modern English. Scribner, Armstrong, & Company. p. 137. Retrieved 2013-02-18.
Leighton, Jan; Leighton, Hallie (1 January 2003). Rare Words and Ways to Master Their Meanings: 500 Arcane But Useful Words for Language Lovers. Levenger Company. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-929154-12-8. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
Marshall, Peter (2001). "Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus: The Intellectual Origins of a Henrician Bon Mot" (PDF). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 52 (3). Cambridge University Press: 512–520. doi:10.1017/S0022046901005978. ISSN 0022-0469. S2CID 154612465. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
Scarlett, Earle Parkhill; Roland, Charles G. (1972). In sickness and in health: reflections on the medical profession. McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 9780771079719. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
Categories: VocabularyLinguistic historySpeech errorQuotations from religion



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Mumpsimus ist ein in der klassischen Philologie verbreiteter scherzhafter Ausdruck, der gebraucht wird, um einen in grotesker Weise konservativen Umgang mit ;berlieferten Texten oder in weiterem Sinn ein gedankenloses traditionsverhaftetes Beharren auf ;berkommenen Gebr;uchen zu kritisieren.

Das Wort geht zur;ck auf eine Anekdote, die anscheinend zuerst in De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur („Vom Wert der Bildung“) des englischen Humanisten Richard Pace (zuerst gedruckt 1517) belegt ist: Ein M;nch habe bei der Zelebration der heiligen Messe nach der Kommunion gem;; seinem Messbuch stets quod ore mumpsimus, Domine, pura mente capiamus gelesen. Darauf hingewiesen, dass es ein Wort „mumpsimus“ nicht gebe und in seinem Exemplar ein Fehler vorliege, der zu quod ore sumpsimus („was wir mit dem Mund empfangen haben“) zu korrigieren sei, antwortete er: Er habe sein Lebtag so gelesen und werde sein „mumpsimus“ nicht gegen dieses neumodische „sumpsimus“ vertauschen, was immer auch die lateinische Sprache und der Sinn erforderlich machten.[1]

Das Wort und implizit auch die damit verbundene Anekdote findet sich bereits in einem Brief des Erasmus an Henry Bulloch aus dem Jahr 1516 erw;hnt.[2] In der klassischen Philologie verbreitete es sich, weil Richard Bentley es in einer ber;hmten Abhandlung benutzte.[3] Da Bentley im neunzehnten Jahrhundert von deutschen Philologen zum Vorbild erhoben wurde,[4] findet sich das Wort seither oft auch in deutschsprachigen altphilologischen Abhandlungen, ;fter noch in polemischen Gelegenheitsschriften und in der gelehrten Korrespondenz, so bei Friedrich August Wolf,[5] Wilamowitz und seinen Sch;lern.[6] In der klassischen Philologie wird mit Aussagen wie „er liest sein altes mumpsimus“ ein extremes Beharren auf dem ;berlieferten Text bezeichnet, das sich dagegen wehrt, korrupte Textstellen durch Konjektur zu emendieren, selbst wenn die notwendige Verbesserung offensichtlich ist.

Im Englischen ist das Wort auch ;ber den engen Bereich der Philologie hinaus zur Bezeichnung von Personen gel;ufig, die in ihrem Beharren auf traditionellen Ansichten oder Gebr;uchen einer rationalen Belehrung nicht zug;nglich sind.[7]

Literatur
D. R. Shackleton Bailey: mumpsimus – sumpsimus. In: Ciceroniana. n.s. 1, 1973, S. 3–9.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey: mumpsimus redivivus. In: Philologus. 121, 1977, S. 241–243.
Nachweise
 Richardus Paceus, De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur liber, Froben, Basileae 1517, p. 80b: "Quidam indoctus Sacrificus Anglus per annos triginta Mumpsimus legere solitus est loco "Sumpsimus"; & quum moneretur ; docto ut errorem emendaret, respondit, Se nolle mutare suum antiquum Mumpsimus ipsius novo Sumpsimus."
 Erasmus, Ep. 456,68-72 Allen, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, denuo recognitum et auctum per P. S. Allen. T. 2., E typographeo Clarendoni, Oxonii 1910, S. 522.
 Richard Bentley, Dissertation Upon the Letters of Phalaris. In: The Works of Richard Bentley. Collected and edited by Alexander Dyce. Vol. 1, Francis Macpherson, London 1836, S. xlviii.
 Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1976, S. 173.
 Friedrich August Wolf, Miscellanea, in: Friedrich August Wolf, Kleine Schriften in lateinischer und deutscher Sprache. Vol. 1: Scripta latina. Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, Halle 1869, S. 497.
 Paul Friedl;nder an Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 26. November 1916, in: "The Wilamowitz in me". 100 Letters between Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Paul Friedl;nder (1904-1931). Edited by William M. Calder III and Bernhard Huss. University of California, Los Angeles 1999, S. 103.
 Webster's Online Dictionary, s. v. mumpsimus (Seite nicht mehr abrufbar, festgestellt im Mai 2019. Suche in Webarchiven)  Info: Der Link wurde automatisch als defekt markiert. Bitte pr;fe den Link gem;; Anleitung und entferne dann diesen Hinweis., The Mavens' Word of the Day, May 23, 2001: Mumpsimus.
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