Stupidity

The expression stupidity in his language development meant, among other things, weakness, shyness or clumsiness and is now often equated with stupidity . The use of the word to characterize a person today is demeaning and often offensive.

Pierer's Universal Lexicon of 1857 distinguishes between “the weakness of the mind, which is a lack of clarity and the like. Confusion of ideas causes ” and a stupidity “ the fearfulness that arises from lack of self-confidence in social intercourse, fearfulness through his behavior against the tact or the one's custom ” . In Kirchner / Michaëli's dictionary of basic philosophical terms , stupidity is described as "the shyness in dealings with others that arises from poor judgment and lack of self-confidence" . Knaur's dictionary on meaning, origin, etc. from 1985 differentiates between stupidity as nonsense , then as stupidity and finally as a quality. The latter is used, for example, in the remark that a text cannot be surpassed in terms of stupidity .

Word history

Historically, stupidity derives from althochdt. blodi , "weak, powerless" or Middle High German blœde , "weak, tender; also atrophic, weak, frail ”. In the Danish word blød , the meaning “soft” has been preserved to this day.

In connection with adjective stems , the suffix -heit has developed into the most popular way of forming abstracts in Old High German (cf. property nominalization). ( Even then, the suffix -ung was in competition with -heit , which was, however, preferably attached to verbal stems ; see event nominalization or event abstract).

-heit comes from the Germanic word * haidu- , "way, appearance", which became heath / heit in Old High German and could serve as a translation option for the Latin words persona and sexus in the 8th and 9th centuries . Stupid ness is thus a typical example of a Eigenschaftsnominalisierung. The corresponding Ereignisabstraktum would Verblöd clothes .

Variants are stupidity (Middle High German still for "weakness", as head stupidity then " poor memory, dementia, disorientation, debility, psychosis") and as adjective stupid and stupid .

Stupidity as weakness

At times, the meaning of stupidity and stupid was limited to the old idea of weakness or weakness that apparently always resonates with this word:

They moved on and found someone sitting by the way who had his eyes tied.
Said the king's son to him: "Do you have stupid eyes that you cannot see the light?" ( Grimms Märchen , The six servants )

In Fontane's Effi Briest we can read:

[...] She was more ladylike than the other two, but boring and conceited, a lymphatic blonde, with slightly protruding, stupid eyes that still seemed to be constantly looking for something, which is why Klitzing had said of the hussars: “See her does not seem as if she is expecting the angel Gabriel at any moment? ” .

Physical characteristics are described here first, but not exclusively in the last two quotations at least. The eye is considered to be one of the most expressive parts of the human body, as the entrance to the soul, and it is also indicative of the state of his mind and his mental receptivity. The case is similar in Genesis chapter 29.

The imbecillitas intellectus nostri in Thomas Aquinas can accordingly also be translated with the stupidity and dullness of our cognitive powers .

Stupidity became a word for mental weakness or idiocy , even without taking into account special physical characteristics or the look of a person (cf. Middle High German head stupidity and stupidity of the main ). From here it came to our current understanding of the word. In ETA Hoffmann's Der Sandmann, for example, the audience makes fun of the automaton doll Olimpia. Since it does not recognize that their lack of words is due to their artificiality, it judges Olimpia as a stupid person .

The connotation of insanity - with the corresponding legal consequences - becomes even clearer in Jaroslav Hašek's Schwejk : He looked bloodthirsty at Schwejk and said: “Don't behave so stupid!” “I can't help it,” Schweik replied seriously, “man super-arbitrated me in the military for stupidity. I have been officially declared an idiot by the Super Arbitration Commission. I'm an official idiot. "

Today no one would accuse anyone with a cognitive disability to be “stupid”, since the word is now considered an abuse. But stupidity does not have to be limited to the individual. There is also the phenomenon that actually intelligent people, when they get together in groups, for example in teams, companies, parties etc., act more stupidly together than they would probably do as an individual: You have the lowest common denominator agreed.

Stupidity in the law

In the past, “stupidity” as a mental quality was used in legal language to attribute insanity to a person because of certain mental weaknesses (this can lead to preferential treatment in certain cases):

People who lack the ability to consider the consequences of their actions are called stupid ( Strein-Linsmairscher draft of the Lower Austrian land law from 1599. )

Item, whether ain raisender suddenly because of ain't a pregnant woman ain grapevine breaks off in the street, she is not guilty of that. ( Lower Austrian Weisthümer , Mannhartsbergviertel in mid-1400)

Stupidity in usage

The original word importance of stupidity as a weakness or timidity is still up in the phrase itself entblöden handed down. Since the 17th century, this form has been known as debasing oneself , i.e. dismissing weaknesses , daring oneself , enjoying oneself , and also not debasing oneself in the same meaning , which is probably due to a reinterpretation of debonding oneself as being ashamed .

In the literary language of the 19th century it was also used with the meaning "(too) shy ".

The noun stupidity is used far less often than the adjective or adverb stupid . This can not only mean stupid , as in the well-known advertising slogan I'm not stupid! , but in certain contexts also unpleasant or threatening , for example when someone says they have a stupid feeling . Even with exclamations like stupid cow! or idiot! if you express less of a judgment about the intellectual level of your counterpart, you rather declare him to be annoying, annoying or even silly .

Often stupidity is used as a synonym for stupidity . However, the proximity to the mental handicap , which was previously called idiocy , has not yet completely disappeared from the sense of language.

In Wanders Deutsches Sprich emphasis-Lexikon there are few copies on the subject - such as:

The stupid lose all feuds (in everyone)
If you are too stupid with your mouth (when eating), you will soon perish
Stupidity is of little use to the poor

Web links

Commons : stupidity - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Wikiquote: Stupidity - Quotes

Wiktionary: stupidity - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

literature

Max Höfler: German book of names of diseases. Munich 1899.

Sources and Notes

↑ stupidity . In: Heinrich August Pierer , Julius Löbe (Hrsg.): Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . 4th edition. tape 2 . Altenburg 1857, p. 897 ( zeno.org ).

↑ Zeno: Lexicon entry on "Stupidity". Kirchner, Friedrich / Michaëlis, Carl: Dictionary of ... Accessed July 30, 2019 .

↑ Knaur's Dictionary of the German Language, 1985, Lexografisches Institut München, page 219.

↑ Thomas Gleinser: Anna von Diesbach's Bernese 'Pharmacopoeia' in the Erlacher version of Daniel von Werdts (1658), Part II: Glossary. (Medical dissertation Würzburg), now at Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1989 (= Würzburg medical-historical research , 46), p. 59 f.

↑ And Sievert Tiburtius in Buddenbrooks has eyes that were usually squeezed together and blinked a little stupidly

↑ where it says: Lea had a stupid face. But Rachel was handsome and beautiful

↑ (see 1 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )@1@ 2

↑ Fritz B. Simon Together we are stupid !? (The intelligence of companies, managers and markets) (2004) Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag, Heidelberg ISBN 3-89670-436-2 .