As a retired lawyer I can attest to the remarkable change that occurred in the legal profession with the advent of widely available electronic searchable legal data banks i.e. access to crystallized facts. Top lawyers were often those who could carry great amounts of case names, facts and laws in their heads. A skill much less necessary now. Memory (natural or artificial) was a vital skill attribute to make curiosity pragmatic - and likely still is (speaking as someone whose memory skills have faded with age).
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. But what state is named after a famous violin maker? If William Penn or the Baron De La Warr or Queen Califa made violins, Wikipedia doesn't say.
Agree that curiosity and excellent judgement are powerfully linked to each other. In any interview of a candidate for almost any role, they form two sides to a vital triangle of qualities, the third being that the candidate adheres to admirable values.
And via Gates, you demonstrate how curiosity is not a part-time hobby, to be lightly indulged in from time to time. Love the Dorothy Parker quote: “the cure for boredom is curiosity - there is no cure for curiosity!”
As for you using the words “eschew” and “philallotopism” in the same sentence, you remind me of the old bumper sticker: “eschew sesquipedalianism”, warning against a sin that your writing consistently avoids.
I enjoyed this article. The violin/state question has me stumped. One other comment, the Griggs case shows how "intelligence tests" or trivia tests were used to discriminate against some applicants. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/401/424/
Really interesting article. Thanks. I'm sending this question to some friends: "Do you know what philallatopism is? If not, then I'm experiencing it." But I fess up.
To take a stab at the etymology of Philallatopism — this word is new to me and I should be clear that I’m just trying to reason it out (in admittedly amateurish fashion):
Phil: love of
Allo: other / different from
Topos: place (similar to topic, which OED tells me is indirectly from Aristotle’s Ta Topika, matters concerning commonplaces)
This is the point at which I hit something of a dead end — I guess the concept of ignorance of others might be there with alla (allos) + topism , but it seems like a more obvious meaning from these roots (if I got those correctly), would be more like ‘relating to the love of other/different places(topics?)’, which could convey a love of acquiring knowledge/trivia, but not so much exposing others’ ignorance.
As a retired lawyer I can attest to the remarkable change that occurred in the legal profession with the advent of widely available electronic searchable legal data banks i.e. access to crystallized facts. Top lawyers were often those who could carry great amounts of case names, facts and laws in their heads. A skill much less necessary now. Memory (natural or artificial) was a vital skill attribute to make curiosity pragmatic - and likely still is (speaking as someone whose memory skills have faded with age).
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. But what state is named after a famous violin maker? If William Penn or the Baron De La Warr or Queen Califa made violins, Wikipedia doesn't say.
Agree that curiosity and excellent judgement are powerfully linked to each other. In any interview of a candidate for almost any role, they form two sides to a vital triangle of qualities, the third being that the candidate adheres to admirable values.
And via Gates, you demonstrate how curiosity is not a part-time hobby, to be lightly indulged in from time to time. Love the Dorothy Parker quote: “the cure for boredom is curiosity - there is no cure for curiosity!”
As for you using the words “eschew” and “philallotopism” in the same sentence, you remind me of the old bumper sticker: “eschew sesquipedalianism”, warning against a sin that your writing consistently avoids.
I enjoyed this article. The violin/state question has me stumped. One other comment, the Griggs case shows how "intelligence tests" or trivia tests were used to discriminate against some applicants. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/401/424/
Really interesting article. Thanks. I'm sending this question to some friends: "Do you know what philallatopism is? If not, then I'm experiencing it." But I fess up.
Wonderful article. This definitely is very interesting to me especially as a college student. Thank you for sharing!
To take a stab at the etymology of Philallatopism — this word is new to me and I should be clear that I’m just trying to reason it out (in admittedly amateurish fashion):
Phil: love of
Allo: other / different from
Topos: place (similar to topic, which OED tells me is indirectly from Aristotle’s Ta Topika, matters concerning commonplaces)
This is the point at which I hit something of a dead end — I guess the concept of ignorance of others might be there with alla (allos) + topism , but it seems like a more obvious meaning from these roots (if I got those correctly), would be more like ‘relating to the love of other/different places(topics?)’, which could convey a love of acquiring knowledge/trivia, but not so much exposing others’ ignorance.