Mumpsimus

A mumpsimus (/ˈmʌmpsɪməs/ MUHMP-sih-məs) 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

Citations

1. Scarlett & Roland 1972, p. 236.
2. Elster 2006, p. 29.
3. Leighton & Leighton 2003, p. 39.
4. Derbyshire 1981, p. 258.
5. Marshall 2001, p. 513.
6. 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.
7. Hall 1873, p. 137.
8. Bradley, Henry, ed. (1908). Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 6: M–N (1st ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 764. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
9. Marshall 2001, p. 514.
10. Marshall 2001.
11. Marshall 2001, p. 515.
12. Marshall 2001, p. 516.
13. Elyot 1883, pp. 288–289.
14. Maleska, Eugene T. (28 October 1979). "Confessions Of A Crossword Editor". The New York Times. p. SM24. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
15. Garner 2009, p. 3709.
16. Dodd 1839, p. 453.
17. Foxe 1859, p. 141.
18. 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.