HOW DUNS BECAME DUNCE; THE STORY OF A WORD

In 1993, the Catholic Church beatified John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), the Scottish Franciscan philosopher, scholar, grammarian, and theologian who was responsible for the eventual birth of the English word "dunce."

Well, not that he created the word himself. History has been in the business of crafting new words out of people's names from time immemorial. Duns' contributions to grammar, metaphysics, logic, and theology were so influential that they earned him papal status.

The subtleness of his mental disposition made the scholars of his era dub him "Doctor Subtilis." It was an intellectual badge of honour to be one of his followers, who were then known as "Duns."

Today, nobody wants to be called a "dunce," not even dunces. So, what changed?

The Renaissance period saw humanist and protestant critics come hard against Duns' body of scholastic postulations. Despite the deprecation that fell on Duns' works, some of his followers held tenaciously unto his patterns of thought and academic methodologies.

Such Duns subsequently acquired the name "Dunce" or "Dunceman," which was from the way they pronounced "Duns" during the Middle Ages.

Hence, if you stubbornly kept clinging unto obsolete ideas, you were a "Dunce." But as centuries rolled into centuries, "dunce" became the word for you if you lack learning capacity; if you are slow at learning; if you are a dimwit. 

TGIF!

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