Eldridge’s Etymology of the Week–Stupid
Stupid comes from a Latin root stupidus, “amazed” or “confounded.” It literally meant to be struck senseless (this comes from stupere, stunned; from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)tupe- “hit,” from base *(s)teu-). And this only seems appropriate from Roman culture that always prized a good fight-those Romans were always spoiling for a new war and a new chance to conquer.
Originally stupid spoke of one’s inability to speak. It is related to astonished (a variant of astonied, literally “turned to stone”). In an oral society to be struck speechless would be catastrophic. Every part of life was communicated through speech: business, war, politics, education, religion. The last would probably be the worst, for in ancient religion, pronouncing the names of the deity was the first step in gaining his/her favor. Without speech, he/she/it would not be too happy. And, amazingly, even reading was out loud. Sustained silent reading was not invented until the 6th century CE with the Benedictine monks who had developed a rule of silence (in order to aid in contemplation)-an amazing innovation!
We still see remnants of the root in the forms of stupefied, e.g., Stupefied silence buoyed in the wake of the professor’s question.. And there is the noun: stupor, a mental haze.
By 1541 stupid is attested as meaning “mentally slow” in English. It gradually replaced the Old English unwis (literally, not wise) and retained its overtones of “stunned by surprise, grief, etc.” well into the 18th century. My guess is that the idea of a (silent) reading public had finally taken hold by then and silence was a sign of decorum and respect, not imbecility. Self-restraint was the core of civility. It became polite to refrain, to defer. What became rude was its opposite: constant chatter.
And so, today stupid generally refers to those who idle away their time with inane conversation, or perhaps just monologue to no audience in particular. We call them “chatty-Cathies” or chismosas now. We have popular clichés: “Silence is golden…” with its handy corollary, “…so shut-up and get rich.” And there are our idioms: to put one’s foot in one’s mouth, as in to say something stupid or grossly inappropriate, usually in reference to a compliment or innocuous comment that sounded of ill intent. Consequently we turn to the proverb: “The silence of a stupid man looks like wisdom.”
And so we see how a word can transition from a physical meaning, to a mental one, and then switch in application and, consequently, in meaning, with changes in cultural context.
As Forrest Gump says: “My mama always told me: Stupid is as stupid does.”*
Postscript: In my ever-engaging Encyclopedia of Stupdity, you can find a lengthy discussion on ‘pataphysics. What is ‘pataphysics, you may ask? Why it is the ever engaging science of imaginary solutions! It was developed by playwright Alfred Jarry who defined it as “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.” Just think of the possibilities! Jarry conceived of a decerebration machine, developed Perpetual Motion Food, and computed the surface of God. ‘Pataphysics purported aim is to “explode” the common belief in what really exists and what does not. (Since when has fantasy been unreal?) ‘Pataphysics must truly be either the most stupid or most brilliant philosophy ever developed.
The Beatles immortalized the “science” in their famous song about the homicidal Maxwell Edison in “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”: “Joan was quizzical / studied ‘pataphysical science in the home.”
* For those that truly DO stupid, we have the wonderful and charming Darwin Awards. These awards are bestowed upon those who have, for the sake of mankind, unintentionally eliminated their genes from the reproductive pool (i.e., died) through their own magnificent stupidity. (I use magnificent in its root meaning, magnus “great”.) Read some of the great moments of past winners and near winners at http://www.darwinawards.com/. They’re a hoot!
Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes and
this is my favorite etymology!
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this is my favorite etymology! for now…
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so i am a bit confused… the word stupid can be used in different ways? I always thought of it only meaning someone really slow. You explained it in 3 different ways so it kind of confused me and now I feel I can use the word stupid and not just be talking about someone really slow.
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Yes, Ivette, it can be used with different connotations. As with all words, the meaning shifts over time, but still retains a little of its older meanings (hence the importance of word roots).
Because STUPID carries these connotations with it, we need to be careful that we are implying the proper sense when we write it, and then we are inferring the proper sense when we read it. If you plan to use it in its older sense, be sure to know who your audience is, so you know if you need to explain your exact meaning.
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i find it almost funny how words change over time. take ‘gay’ for instance. gay=happy some decades ago and now gay=homosexuals. does this mean homosexuals=happy?! no i wouldn’t think so… funny.
Rathsmuths told me that in Denmark, trout means trout, but it also means idiot. trout…idiot… I know i’m stupid but i don’t see the relation…
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So the whole trout meaning idiot according to Rasmus seemed interesting.
It is a common notion that fish are stupid (unintelligent) with a common myth of fish only being able to remember things for a couple of seconds at a time. That’s probably how the idea of ‘trout,’ a fish, meaning idiot.
However, if anybody’s interested, I found a website explaining how fish aren’t as stupid as we think. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article644831.ece
According to it, “studies have shown that fish can rememeber anything for up to three years” So they must not be as mentally slow as we thought them to be.
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How is it possible to convincingly measure whether an animal can (insert mental function here) when we do not even know whether the animal is sentient or not? How can we determine that with 100% certainty? And if we cannot, what business do we have trying to find out?
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The fact that you can train animals is why it’s possible. When you train and animal, they are learning to equate an action with either a positive or negative response, and by observing an animal’s ability (i.e. time it takes) to be trained, we can see how quickly they are able to learn.
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It would be really interesting to find out the magnitude of an animals cognizance, especially towards humans. I think there’s even an area of biology focused on that: animal cognition, or something. Training animals could be one way, but the only thing that would reveal is how potent their survival skills are, since the most effective method of getting an animal to do something is by giving them food in exchange. I heard somewhere, most likely animal planet, that the gesture of dogs licking your hands or your face isn’t really a sign of affection towards their owner, but rather a ravaging desire for salt. So while you might think that that one poodle is one heck of a friend, providing emotional support to his owner during the hard times, he might actually just be savoring a giant walking pretzel.
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I do find that the change of the meaning of “stupid” is very interesting. This entire passage shows not only how one word can change over time, but how entire cultures can change over time. As stated above, communication was a key element in living a full, happy life. Even though communication is important now, because of the need to understand each other, it is true that silence has been but on a higher pedestal. In many class settings, there is usually a designated silent time to do work and when one talks, one will most likely get in trouble. This transformation in culture over time is good evidence to why the word “stupid”’s meaning has progressively changed from “speechless” to ” not smart” or plainly “dumb”.
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Wow it is amazing to me on how many transformations that the word “stupid” went through. Its hard to believe it meant “amazed” or “confounded”.
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I can understand how the word “stupid” has changed over the years. For “stupid” to start as “amazed” and “confounded” as if the person can’t even speak in my mind seems as if the person looks totally awestruck that they look dumb. I can see how we use the word today to tell someone they are “stupid” because the word has changed overtime to mean “slow in the head” due to the fact that the person may not be able to say anything when other people say something smart, and they just don’t get it.
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I am not surprised that people in general have changed the word stupid, originally meaning great or amazing, to something so different and crazy. I suppose it is ironic that we have evolved so much, including our language, but we do weird things such as degrading a term into something worse than its original meaning.
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For those of you interested in how we can actually test animals memory and brain function, here is an awesome lecture Ashley & I attended at CalTech.
Here is a link to the cal tech streaming theater website http://today.caltech.edu/theater/list?subset=all.
The lecture we attended is
Erin Schuman: Brain Plasticity during Learning and Memory (5/9/2007)
It is a phenomenal series of images and research findings about rats, humans, brains, and memory. Enjoy.
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“through their own magnificent stupidity.” HAHAHA I laugh at that oxymoron. Or is it an oxymoron? Well stupid seems to have come a long way, like I said before words do not evolve they regress! Unless we consider slang a part of evolution (this might be debatable).
I love this Mr.Eldridge, I am extremely jealous that we did not have the opportunity to do this during our class.
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