Word: mumpsimus
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...know that a moirologist is a professional mourner, that an anthracomancer tells fortunes by means of burning coals, and that a mumpsimus is someone who refuses to correct an error (this last being derived from a 16th century priest who kept using that word when reciting the Mass even though he had been repeatedly told that he was supposed to say sumpsimus). But how many people are aware that pizzlesprung is a Kentucky word to describe the weary, or that nutation is the wobble in the earth's axis caused by the pull of the moon? Who remembers that...
Besides these more important aspects of the play there is another not uninteresting to Latin students. The whole is given with the comparatively lately adopted 'Roman pronunciation.' Many persons are wont to ridicule this method, simply because their ears are unaccustomed to it. They prefer the mumpsimus of the ignorant priest to the sumpsimus of the Latin ritual. The sooner such persons, or any persons for that matter, become accustomed to the right way, the sooner they will find that there is no more difficulty and no less enjoyment in this than in the old barbarous jargon. For the English...
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