The Wit's Guide to Gumption

Or, assorted surviving bastards

The Return of the Crusader and also his Horse, Carl Friedrich Lessing, 1835

Gumption, in the original Scots-English usage, meant common sense or knowhow. In the North American adaptation, gumption became synonymous with persistence or resolve. That may be a telling commentary on social mobility, or just more proof of Shaw’s line about two countries divided by a common language. Through sheer self-fulfilling tenacity, the second meaning seems to have triumphed. The pinnacle of American gumption is indubitably Forrest Gump, right there in the name of the movie that beat Pulp Fiction at the Oscars in 1995. The moral: Even the best dance scene in modern cinema can’t top star-spangled sticktoitiveness.

“If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.”
— Quentin Crisp

As a strong-willed, effeminate boy in Edwardian England, Quentin Crisp’s early years read like one long hate crime. He exemplified gumption precisely by not sticking with it: “I knew that my life was, in a sense, a losing battle, and I was right. So I thought there might be some way of making a go of failure.”

 “Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live but because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the satisfaction of his death.”
— Brendan Francis

When gumption bleeds (and sweats and tears) into grind and hustle (grustle, as Rusty Foster portmanteaus it), it’s the wit’s prerogative to opt out. But if gumption means resourcefulness and cleverness and savoir faire, well, it’s almost synonymous with wit. 

“If you’re a hypochondriac, first class, you awaken each morning with the firm resolve not to worry; everything is going to turn out all wrong.”
— Goodman Ace

In the 1974 philosophical bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Persig warns of gumption traps, “effective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks in the perception of Quality relationships.” He defined the G-word as “the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going,” and worried that you might feel it drain away when you encounter external setbacks or internal hang-ups. Keep going!

“Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.”
— Peter Ustinov

How do you escape gumption traps? A hundred years prior, the polymath Francis Galton created a gumption reviver machine. Because Red Bull had yet to be invented, he posited that all-night study sessions could be facilitated by a funnel that dripped water on your head to keep you awake. How that machine avoided destroying the material you were studying is not clear, but as Galton went onto pioneer the field of eugenics, we might conclude that consideration of medium-term consequences was not one of his strengths as an inventor.

“It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.”
— Jessamyn West

We always need a new synonym for gumption. Grit had its day about a decade ago, when Angela Duckworth turned it into a bestselling book. Pluck is a bit too avian. Moxie is the name of a soft drink. And if the person who coined the term sticktoitiveness really exemplified that quality, shouldn’t they have worked harder to come up with a better term?

So let me propose: Gorm. Someone lacking gumption is called gormless, so it’s already been proven to be a key factor in initiative. Let’s work to make gorm the new norm! Unless it doesn’t take, at which point we’ll be resourceful enough to try something else! Gormption!

---

This week’s ReccoMention 

For my paying subscribers (C$30/yr!) this week, we celebrate the gumption required to tell a joke that may not have a punchline. Or is the true gumption required by the listener?

This month’s Riposte Card 

For my founding subscribers ($C80/yr!), April’s Riposte Card by Jamie Bennett continues to challenge the gumption of all those aspiring writers. Subscribe today!

---

Quote Vote

“If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer.”
— Clement Freud

I’m typing this on a train and can’t help but think the romance of any form of transport is inversely correlated to its prevalence. I’m editing it in an airport and am sure of it. Or am I?

---

As Get Wit Quick celebrates Issue No. 250, let us reflect that if you steadfastly commit to publishing a newsletter every single week for nearly five years, you can publish a newsletter every single week for nearly five years. Gorm! My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting has exactly as much practical advice about motorcycle maintenance as the average person needs. I know you’ve got the gumption to find a way to tap the ❤️ below.