英语词汇dunce的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

dunce. Ironically, one of the most brilliant scholars and phi losophers of the Middle Ages is the source for the word dunce. Little is known about John Duns Scotus outside of his new the- ology. He was probably born in 1265 in Scotland, most likely died while still a young man, aged 43 or so, and his middle name is presumably a place name, either from the village of Duns, Scotland, Dunse in Berwickshire, or Dunston in Nor- thumberland. The “Subtle Doctor,” as he was called, apparently taught at Oxford and the University of Paris, but again there is no hard evidence available. Duns Scotus did found a school of philosophy that attracted numerous followers. A Franciscan, he successfully opposed the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans, challenging the harmony of faith and rea- son, and insisted on the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- tion, for which he was known as the Marian Doctor. After his death—tradition has it that he died in Cologne, buried alive— Duns Scotus remained a great influence on scholastic thought. His works were studied in all the great universities throughout Europe and his followers, called Scotists, reigned supreme. However, these same Dunsmen sabotaged his reputation some 200 years later. During the Renaissance, blindly resistant to change, “the old barking curs” raged from the pulpit against the new learning, being scorned and ridiculed as hairsplitters and stupid obstructionists. Dunsmen became dunses and finally dunces, “blockheads incapable of learning or scholarship.” Ex- actly the opposite of the precise, learned mind of the man who started it all. See dumb ox.

词汇	dunce
词源	dunce. Ironically, one of the most brilliant scholars and phi losophers of the Middle Ages is the source for the word dunce. Little is known about John Duns Scotus outside of his new the- ology. He was probably born in 1265 in Scotland, most likely died while still a young man, aged 43 or so, and his middle name is presumably a place name, either from the village of Duns, Scotland, Dunse in Berwickshire, or Dunston in Nor- thumberland. The “Subtle Doctor,” as he was called, apparently taught at Oxford and the University of Paris, but again there is no hard evidence available. Duns Scotus did found a school of philosophy that attracted numerous followers. A Franciscan, he successfully opposed the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans, challenging the harmony of faith and rea- son, and insisted on the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- tion, for which he was known as the Marian Doctor. After his death—tradition has it that he died in Cologne, buried alive— Duns Scotus remained a great influence on scholastic thought. His works were studied in all the great universities throughout Europe and his followers, called Scotists, reigned supreme. However, these same Dunsmen sabotaged his reputation some 200 years later. During the Renaissance, blindly resistant to change, “the old barking curs” raged from the pulpit against the new learning, being scorned and ridiculed as hairsplitters and stupid obstructionists. Dunsmen became dunses and finally dunces, “blockheads incapable of learning or scholarship.” Ex- actly the opposite of the precise, learned mind of the man who started it all. See dumb ox.
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