DUMB = Duke University Marching Band

And yes... this is seriously the name.

This large moving object is composed of many individuals from the Duke student body. Included in this group is the infamous Muffin Man. DUMB follows the football and basketball teams wherever they may go, and remains a constant part of the Cameron Crazies.

I remember the faux-granite cafe table,
your graceful hand smoothing your blue
silk batik dress as you lamented the cost
of your daughter's crow-footed tuition.

Not merely a teacher but a professor, you 
knew college like a chef knows meat. Score-
happy undergrads claimed you as a favorite
while you eased them into life's grinder,
took them for treats before they left town

for rosy jobcoggery.  Tenure buttered
your budget for croissants and birch beer,
but oh, your kid's crimson-lined hunger -
on a tweed skirt paycheck, Harvard's hard.

But it would cost her almost nothing here,
I said. Your oh-please smile marked me
naive. You declared your only child
deserved class with smart people.

The pastry went to sand in my mouth.
I wanted to leap onto the brittle table, yell
Woo howdy no don't let yer purty little gal
git learnt longside fool rubes like me!

My dumb face surely flushed Hoosier red
but you chatted on about racism, social justice
as the kid at the counter carved fresh turkey
and I realized I'd never have the cash to pay
for the sandwich I wanted to feed you.

So I snuffed my reply with a bite of turnover pie
as tinsel wisdoms spilled from your unbruised lips. 
Let you assume silence was assent.  That I left
in mute admiration of your enlightenment.

Dumb (?), a. [AS. dumb; akin to D. dom stupid, dumb, Sw. dumb, Goth. dumbs; cf. Gr. blind. See Deaf, and cf. Dummy.]

1.

Destitute of the power of speech; unable; to utter articulate sounds; as, the dumb brutes.

To unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures. Hooker.

2.

Not willing to speak; mute; silent; not speaking; not accompanied by words; as, dumb show.

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. Shak.

To pierce into the dumb past. J. C. Shairp.

3.

Lacking brightness or clearness, as a color.

[R.]

Her stern was painted of a dumb white or dun color. De Foe.

Deaf and dumb. See Deaf-mute. -- Dumb ague, ∨ Dumb chill, a form of intermittent fever which has no well-defined "chill." [U.S.] -- Dumb animal, any animal except man; -- usually restricted to a domestic quadruped; -- so called in contradistinction to man, who is a "speaking animal." -- Dumb cake, a cake made in silence by girls on St. Mark's eve, with certain mystic ceremonies, to discover their future husbands. Halliwell. -- Dumb cane Bot., a west Indian plant of the Arum family (Dieffenbachia seguina), which, when chewed, causes the tongue to swell, and destroys temporarily the power of speech. -- Dumb crambo. See under crambo. -- Dumb show. (a) Formerly, a part of a dramatic representation, shown in pantomime. "Inexplicable dumb shows and noise." Shak. (b) Signs and gestures without words; as, to tell a story in dumb show. -- To strike dumb, to confound; to astonish; to render silent by astonishment; or, it may be, to deprive of the power of speech.

Syn. -- Silent; speechless; noiseless. See Mute.

 

© Webster 1913.

---

Dumb, v. t.

To put to silence.

[Obs.]

Shak.

 

© Webster 1913.