Where did the insult “dunce” come from?
A dunce is a person incapable of learning.The word is dervied from the great schoolman John Duns Scotus.Duns or Dunsman was a name applied by early opponents to the followers of Duns Scotus,who were less disaragingly called the scotists.Hence the term came to refer to anyone devoted to sophistry in their argumentation.When in the 16th century,the scotists obstinately oppsed the new learning,the term duns or dunce became,in the mouths of the humanists and reformers,a term of abuse,a synonym for one incapable of scholarship.
