Many of us here in the states have heard about the recent Daily Mirror's headline using the word "dumb."

Now, Richard tells me that "dumb" in the U.K. is commonly used to mean "stupid." There are those here who use it that way, too, but as an advocate for the disabilities community, I hate to see it used that way. However, after reading about it, I may rethink that.

It was my understanding that the "dumb" evolved to mean "stupid" because it means lacking the power of speech, and people often think that those who don't speak are just plain "stupid." That evolution has always irritated me because to me it was demeaning to people with a disability.

Yet, when I look it up in dictionary.com, I find that the evolution in fact may be because of a German influence. The word for "stupid" in German is "dumm", and the evolution of the meaning could have been from German immigrants.

Is that the real reason why "dumb" evolved? Or, do you think it was for both reasons? Do you use "dumb" to mean "stupid?"

I've always though of "dumb" as having two meanings:
1 Stupid
2 Unable to speak.

I tend to use the word only in the first sense though. If I mean the second, I use "mute" instead.

It is a word that has, now, two main meanings. From the Dictionary.com page:

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In ordinary spoken English, a sentence such as He is dumb will be interpreted to mean “He is stupid” rather than “He lacks the power of speech.” “Lacking the power of speech” is, however, the original sense of the word, but it has been eclipsed by the meaning “stupid.” For this change in meaning, it appears that the Germans are responsible. German has a similar and related word dumm that means “stupid,” and over time, as a result of the waves of German immigrants to the United States, it has come to influence the meaning of English dumb.

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In earlier times the term, "deaf and dumb" was common, so the idea that one was lacking both hearing and speech was clear. However, we now know that deaf people are able to use a rich language of signs and gestures equal to any spoken language, so, while "dumb" might still at times refer to being mute as a result of having never heard spoken language, I don't feel that it's realy relevant today. Most deaf people CAN be taught to speak, but only need to among non-signing dummkopfs like me!

Arnie quite correctly noted AHD's claim that the word 'dumb' originally had solely the meaning of incapable of speech, and only later evolved the meaning of stupid. But The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology takes the opposite position.

Compare their statements. I have no clue as to who is right.

AHD: "Lacking the power of speech" is, however, the original sense of the word, but it has been eclipsed by the meaning "stupid."
Oxf Etym: The orig. sense was prob. 'stupid', 'without understanding'; from which the senses 'deaf' and 'dumb' would be developed by specialization in different ways.

The English sense 'stupid' owes its present popularity to the influence of German dumm, being 19th-century US slang. But the sense of 'stupid' already existed in English from much earlier (OE cites 1531).

It looks like a straightforward direction of change: you'd expect 'mute' to give a derived sense 'stupid', given people's beliefs about mutes before about 1800. But both senses seem to go right back into Germanic, and it doesn't seem to have any cognates outside. (We can't look at the Lithuanian or Sanskrit equivalent and settle which meaning came first).

Zoëga's Old Norse dictionary glosses dumbr as 'dumb, mute', whereas Skeat's etymological dictionary says OHG tumb meant 'stupid'.

I would have thought 'stupid' was by far the predominant sense today, so that expressions like 'a dumb idea' don't convey anything pejorative about mutes -- unlike say deliberately pejorative use of 'spastic'.

Pokorny cites Gothic dumbs, Old Norse dumbr, Old English dumb 'mute', Old High German tumb 'mute, dumb, unintelligible', Old Saxon dumb 'simple-minded'. These are under the entry for the PIE root *dheu- 'to whirl (dust, smoke, steam); to waft, blow, puff; breeze, breath' (it's a long entry pp.261-267). The form with -bh- (and in dumb's case with a further nasalization) has the further glosses 'to fume; foggy, dark; to darken as with sin'. There are lots of IE words listed on those 7 pages, including other forms Gk thumos 'soul, spirit', Latin fumus 'smoke' and Old English dun 'mountain', German Dunst 'haze, smoke'.

Am I the only one here that sees a problem with the use of "dumb" to mean "stupid?" Why not just use "stupid?" I don't think it is a respectful term to use. Didn't your mothers teach you not to say "dumb" for "stupid," much like telling you not to say "shutup?" Or was mine only being excrutiatingly politically correct?

On the other hand, I would never call someone "mute," "dumb." So, I suppose I would then never use the word "dumb."

Kalleh, I think that you and I are equally quixotic in our quest to quaff the corruption of certain words: yours is "dumb," mine is "gay."

I do agree that it seems - well, stupid to equate being dumb (unable to speak) with stupidity, yet one can see how a hearing person would make that assumption out of ignorance. As for "gay," I guess I'll have to cease being gay and return to being sullen.

Asa,
Please continue to be "gay"... you are very funny; we don't like sullen.

To further muddy the waters, young people nowadays use the word "gay" to mean "stupid/dumb"...!!

It's probably anacronistic to expect this to have effected the usage of the word, but as kids we would call people dumbos, to mean stupid, influenced by the Disney film.

One of my students also uses the word gay to mean stupid. We had gay chemical equations the other week. Another student uses the word bad in its original meaning (ie not good) which sounds most confusing from somebody his age.

It's not corruption or decay, it's change. Rail as you want, but there's not much you can do about it. It seems the word meant something more akin to stupid than mute back in its day.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but gay was a common word for those involved in the sex trade in the UK in the last half of the 19th century. Gay ladies meant whores. It's hard for me to not think ofthese three meanings of gay (joyous, homsexual, and whorish) when I hear or read the word, but as Richard has pointed out they're a bajillion meanings for set in the OED, and folks don't get too bent out of shape. It's pretty easy from context to know what Nietzsche's the Gay Science meant versus say the gay rights movement in the EU. Gay ladies is ambiguous for me between prostitutes and lesbians, but would probably disambiguate in context.

I believe there are two kinds of people: those who wish that language was unambiguous and monosemous and those who are fascinated by abmiguity and polysemy in language.

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Originally posted by Graham Nice:
as kids we would call people dumbos, to mean stupid, influenced by the Disney film.

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I got curious, did a little research, and found that the movie is playing on the two meanings of the term. The elephant's name comes from dumb meaning stupid. (When Mrs. Jumbo's new baby arrives [via stork], she names him Jumbo Jr., but the other female elephants are catty and upon seeing the baby's big ears, dub him Dumbo.) But throughout the movie, Dumbo never speaks. He is thus totally dumb in the other sense.

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Originally posted by jheem:
I believe there are two kinds of people: those who wish that language was unambiguous and monosemous and those who are fascinated by abmiguity and polysemy in language.

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I like to think I'm in the second group, and I am most of the time, but with regard to linguistic evolvution, there are some changes I have difficulty with (txt spk bng 1 of them). I particularly have a problem with the word 'gay' being used to mean stupid, pathetic etc because the main meaning people now associate with it is homosexual (sorry Asa! ), and the sudden change into meaning anything unpleasant has suspicious homophobic undertones to me. If it was a word previously associated with a societal group that didn't still suffer oppression then it wouldn't matter so much, but they do so it does.

I'd love someone to prove me wrong on this, but over here "that's so gay" started off as a way of (usually negatively) describing someone acting in a stereotypically camp manner (or similar), then very quickly became a way of expressing general distaste. I can't see there not being a link.

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Gay ladies meant whores.

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Who consorted with dandyprats. It all makes sense to me!

Rail as you want, but there's not much you can do about it

I guess it all depends on what one means by rail, but somehow I haven't seen any railing here. I have seen a cogent discussion.

I believe there are two kinds of people: those who wish that language was unambiguous and monosemous and those who are fascinated by abmiguity and polysemy in language.

I don't. I believe there is a continuum of thoughts on that, and even then, I think it is dynamic for most people. In other words, I don't think people have their labels on how they think about this. Sometimes I embrace new meanings, and sometimes I think it is just a misuse of a word. I have seen most people here taking different positions on word evolutions, depending on the word they are discussing.

Cat, I agree with you completely on the evolution of "gay" to meaning "stupid." To me, it is clear homophobia at work, and I would never accept that definition. Yet, I do accept the evolution of "gay" to mean "homosexual."

So if one were a cheerful, stupid, homosexual harlot named Gaye, one would be a gay gay gay gay Gaye? Sounds like a cheer at a football match.

Asa, you are killin me! Laughing sooooo hard!

Actually, 'round these parts, gay gay gay gay gay is more like a label for a gay man who isn't admiting it. lol True!

I will say that you have all convinced me about the definition of "dumb" meaning "stupid." I was obviously wrong about thinking it to be demeaning to people who are mute. In fact, its roots very well validate the "stupid" meaning.

Reviving a thread...

I am in Miami at a conference, and I was in the elevator tonight. A couple in their teens got in at the last moment and asked me what button I had pressed. When I told them, they said, "Oh, that's gay." I said, "What did you say?" They then looked at old fogey me and said, "Oh...that's the correct floor." I know the word was "gay" and not "okay" or "kay" or anything. Is that a new usage of the word "gay?"

What floor number was it? Where they going to the same floor as you were? This was a male/female couple, I assume, dating, since they were in their teens. Where they closer to 15 or 19? Was it the boy who said "That's gay"? Couldn't they have looked at the button to see which floor you had selected?

For example, if there were 3 floors, you were on the 1st, and had selected 2, a guy might say "that's gay" if he were going to the 3rd floor, because then the trip would be longer, and you could have just taken the stairs. At least, that's how a 16 year old views it. They don't realize that stairs get progressively harder as you get older.

Wow, that's quite an analysis! They were probably closer to 19 than 15, and they seemed to be girlfriend/boyfriend. They got in at the lobby with me, and they were going to my floor, which was 11. Though they seemed amused that I didn't know what they meant by "gay," they also seemed to be using it to say, "That's good." They were definitely pleasant and not annoyed. Is "gay" used like that ever?

[Note: "They don't realize that stairs get progressively harder as you get older." Ahem! The fact is, I am really quite fit for my age, isn't that so, Shu? ]

The details of your story make me think they really were saying "that's kay", and it just sounded to you like "that's gay"? I've used and heard "gay" in many different contexts, and that doesn't seem close to anything I've used or heard.

I really don't think it was "kay," as I had originally said. Remember, this was Florida...where anything seems to go! I hear people saying "that's gay" all the time, and wondered if it had evolved into meaning "that's good." Oh, well...I will probably never know!

I'm about 95% certain they couldn't have been saying "that's gay", but I suppose if that is what you heard, I'll have to construct an explanation.