We probably all know an ultracrepidarian. It’s someone who gives advice or opinions on things they don’t know anything about.
A different type of cobbler.
The story behind this word comes, as do many of my words of the week, from Ancient Greece. A famous painter by the name of Apelles (said to have been court artist to Alexander the Great – so a pretty big deal then) heard a cobbler being rude about the way he’d painted a foot in one of his works. Apelles then said something very cutting and witty to the cobbler about how he shouldn’t judge things that were beyond him (although, to be fair to the cobbler, he probably had seen a fair few feet working as he did in the shoemaking game… Anyway, I digress). Sadly, Apelles’ exact remark has been lost in the mists of time, which is annoying. But much cleverer people than me think it probably went something along the lines of ultra crepidam, which means ‘beyond the sole’ in Latin. And from that we get ultracrepidarian. Or, in modern parlance, mansplainer.