 Some of Ramus’ opponents called him usuarius or usurarius. Both words derive etymologically from the Latin verb uti, to use or to receive benefit from. The second term, usurarius, is directly related to usura, interest. Its application to Ramus was, no doubt, intended as a criticism, indicating that he was strutting around in borrowed finery, perhaps combined with an imputation of avarice. According to Nancelius, his fortune was modest but still substantial enough for him to defray the costs of endowing a professorship (Nancelius Petri Rami Vita: 243). By insisting that studies should be useful, humanists were attacking the scholastics for promoting what they regarded as a useless curriculum. Ramus, along with other humanists, often ridiculed the meaningless rules and facts that young students were compelled to memorize (Nancelius Petri Rami Vita: 212; cf. Ong 1958: 321n). It is easy to see why such unsatisfactory practices in the universities were condemned and why a humanist like Ramus was deeply unsympathetic toward the bad Latin which scholastics regularlarly and deliberately employed in disputations to express their logical type of linguistic arguments: 