Talk:Dunce

message: The overview section gets into the etymology of the word, and then the first section says the same thing without really expanding on it... reads like two different authors. Can I suggest removing the second paragraph from the overview? I would do it myself, but I don't know if we want to keep the part about Samuel Johnson vs. Richard Stinhurst (which seems to beg for a citation). Did Johnson explicitly disagree with Stinhurst? Or did he just not have an answer to the question? Brymc210 (talk) 23:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Reorganizing

message: Could this page be combined with Dunce Cap? They say almost the same thing. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Mice (talk  o contribs) 30 November 2006, 00:55 (UTC)
=== Question ===
The term "New learning" is mentioned as 16th century, but the example given is the King James translation of the Bible, which he commissioned after receiving the Kingship of England in 1603.72.66.52.91 (talk) 07:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: The term "New learning" is mentioned as 16th century, but the example given is the King James translation of the Bible, which he commissioned after receiving the Kingship of England in 1603.72.66.52.91 (talk) 07:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: "A dunce cap, also variously known as a dunce hat, dunce's cap or dunce's hat, is a pointed hat, formerly used as an article of discipline in schools in Europe" - where in Europe? It's a big place. The only specific country named in the reference that I saw is England.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.182.242 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where in Europe? 

message: The first sentence is: "A dunce is a person considered incapable of learning." This can't be right. If it were, anyone who is thought to be incapable of learning, by some number of people, would fall under this definition and so would *objectively* be a dunce. But of course, that's mistaken. No one is objectively a dunce, any more than anyone is objectively a hunk or a dickhead. Objectively speaking there are no dunces, hunks, or dickheads.  Instead what exists are the concepts 'dunce', 'hunk', and 'dickhead', and words that express these concepts. (Concepts are bits of thought we use to think. They are not written or spoken, as words are.)
There is another problem. What someone means when they call someone a dunce isn't that this person is *considered* to be incapable of learning. What they mean is, at least, that this person *is* incapable of learning. They probably also mean that the person is worthy of ridicule for it. Note that the OED does not hedge with the word 'considered'; they have "A person who is slow at learning or of low intelligence; a stupid, dim-witted person; an idiot." But this article cannot simply say "A dunce is a slow, dim-witted person" or the like because that would imply that there is, according to the neutral perspective of an encyclopedia, a group of people who are dunces, just as there are people who are firefighters.
Perhaps the article could focus on the five-letter word "dunce", rather than dunces (who are not themselves words, but people thought to exist). The article could begin: "Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning an unteachable person."
Then again, perhaps I am quite wrong, and a dunce for making these suggestions. It would be fitting if I were deemed a dunce for my admittedly Scholastic approach. 67.193.78.205 (talk) 17:51, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "A dunce is a person considered incapable of learning."