Humpty Dumptyism

See also: Humpty-Dumptyism

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Humpty Dumpty +‎ -ism, after the fictional character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, who, when asked what he means by glory, replies, "I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" Alice protests that this isn't the meaning of glory and Humpty Dumpty replies, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean——neither more nor less."

Pronunciation

  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

Humpty Dumptyism (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) The practice of insisting that a word means whatever one wishes it to.
    • 2003, J. A. Keats, Norman Cliff, Ordinal Measurement in the Behavioral Sciences, page 31:
      "It seems to be saying one or both of two things. One is that any score that comes out of any procedure that purports to measure intelligence is a value of the scale, intelligence. If so, this would be Humpty Dumptyism."

See also

References

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