Ultracrepidarianism is the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge.
The term ultracrepidarian was first publicly recorded in 1819 by the essayist William Hazlitt in a letter to William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review:[1] "You have been well called an Ultra-Crepidarian critic."[2] It was used again four years later in 1823, in the satire by Hazlitt's friend Leigh Hunt, Ultra-Crepidarius: a Satire on William Gifford.
The term draws from a famous comment purportedly made by Apelles, a famous Greek artist to a shoemaker who presumed to criticise his painting.[3] The Latin phrase, "Sutor, ne ultra crepidam", as set down by Pliny and later altered by other Latin writers to "Ne ultra crepidam judicaret", can be taken to mean that a shoemaker ought not to judge beyond his own soles. That is to say, critics should only comment on things they know something about.[4] The saying remains popular in several languages, and is translated directly into the common Dutch saying "schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest" (shoemaker, stick to your last).