<p>Then there are words I avoid altogether, like “forte”. The language purist would pronounce it “fort”, but the common pronunciation is “for-tay”. I’m so torn I just go with good old “strength”.</p>
<p>So funny. Both my boys are deaf and both are voracious readers. So we get the same, in part because of never having overheard the word (the weakness of hearing technology. We say they’re well read and poorly spoke!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>TheGFG, please do not ascribe sentiments to me that I haven’t expressed. It sounds as though you are constantly on edge about the slightest slights against elite schools, both here and IRL. OF COURSE kids at non-elite schools have imperfections. No one has suggested that they don’t.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I completely agree that there is greater density of smart kids at better colleges. Where I disagree is on how much it makes a difference, as long as there is enough of a vibrant group of similarly intellectual or engaged students for any one student to find his or her “people.” Obviously, no student can be friends with every one of the 5000-plus undergrads at Yale, for example. And, assuming that this student is not one dimensional, he or she will like some of them and not like others–just as it happens in real life. Most of us just need critical mass of like-minded friends and acquaintances to feel we belong and to find adequate stimulation from our interactions with others.</p>
<p>“Can You give an example of something that came up in normal conversation with your Harvard pal that you found you could never possibly fathom? How did it come up in conversation?”</p>
<p>bovertine, I don’t know if I’ll think of a great example but it happens all the time, and with everyone in one of my peer groups where this guy means a lot to others too. It might be references to an Iraqi film that is famous in his mind but I have no clue, or some literary reference, or something like what the freemasons were REALLY all about. It’s a combination of breadth and depth. He and I have actually talked about it, and I’ve asked him how he could know so much in so many different areas. His knowledge of films alone by age 20 would blow your mind, but he had any number of things like that. I have literally tried to think about how people that smart accumulated the extent of their knowledge in the limited number of years and hours they have lived. I can’t do justice here. But it’s also not unlike the difference between two surgeons. It’s not easy just to be a “regular” surgeon, but then there will a surgeon who remarkably talented in several other areas and has a command of literature and history rivaling Ph.D.s in history and literature. Look at the guy who started Khan Academy who went to MIT. He was a hedge fund guy and go look at this site and the amount of stuff he has command of to TEACH others IN A LANGUAGE THEY WILL UNDERSTAND but not patronizing for a second. He as far as I know had no special, formal training in all of those areas (high level math, organic chem, physics, etc, etc). I absolutely believe that somebody like the Khan guy should have gone MIT or Harvard or Stanford of wherever. People like that are in a different league.</p>
<p>I guess is someone decides he or she is going to compete with you here or dislike you or pick at you are whatever, there’s nothing really to do.</p>
<p>In my experience, context and environment influences language and language expectations. It’s not that you’re thinking about it. It’s part of how we almost instinctively orient ourselves. If I’m in a rural town in KY with mostly coal miners, I’m not going to a barbecue and start spouting about Heidegger. But I will be aware during the conversations, and when it turns out someone is there that knows something of that sort then I will automatically adjust, and we both will smile and laugh about it and keep talking. It’s not a big conscious thing. We make millions of adjustments in our minds and social senses within moments and these don’t usually rise to the level of consciousness but we’re doing it. Now if I’m in Harvard Square it’s immediately evident that’s a different environment. A few here seem so protective of how smart they are that very, very simple truths and concessions become like pulling teeth.</p>
<p>Oh please. There are brilliant and well read people in this world who never went to college, and who live anywhere you can imagine. I find it distasteful that one thinks they are adjusting their language based on the education level of their audience. You know…if an auto mechanic started discussing his technical work with me in technical terms, I would be clueless. This is a skilled worker with a different work lexicon than mine.</p>
<p>It must be some miracle that MOST of us can easily communicate with folks at different levels of education, different perceived levels of college schooling, and geographic location. </p>
<p>Give me a break.</p>
<p>Momentary digression- just happened to turn on College Jeopardy. There is a student from Stanford, a student from Bowdoin (which Alex Trebeck pronounced correctly) and a student from Asuza Pacific University. True confessions-- never heard of it. Goes to show smart (or those good at trivia, etc) can be found at any college. Well, we’ll see what happens over the next 1/2 hr. Carry on.</p>
<p>This is sort of random, but when you have someone in your family who is really sick and you have your local hospital option, how instinctively do we say “let’s get you into Boston” to be seen, or let’s get you over to Duke or Carolina, or get an appointment at Hopkins? Because we know that chances are we’re going to get a really, really smart and very possibly brilliant physician. Now part of that is that major academic medical centers see a volume of rare kinds of illnesses/diseases so that they just have more experience. But there’s also a reason why many of those physicians are at those kinds of places.</p>
<p>“You know…if an auto mechanic started discussing his technical work with me in technical terms, I would be clueless. This is a skilled worker with a different work lexicon than mine.”</p>
<p>Exactly. This little mini-discussion isn’t about Harvard or elite educations. At least for me it was about whether people routinely adjust how they communicate, even without being conscious of it. And you gave a perfect example. The same for me when someone is fixing my computer. And then if it turns out that you realize both of you share an interest in 19th century German philosophy that’s a great bonus, but I don’t go in EXPECTING that when I go through the drive-thru at Wendy’s.</p>
<p>Does an astronaut communicate at NASA in exactly the same way that he or she would when visiting an 8th grade science class? No, and the adjustment isn’t self-conscious or affected. It’s immediate and natural.</p>
<p>My point is that this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the prestige of your college, or your educational level.</p>
<p>Speaking of lexicons - those who have ever taken a look at urbandictionary.com understand. My kids have hours of entertainment baffling me with such terms. I on the other hand - more innocently - meet with blank stares when I make mention of such things as “johnny on the spot”, “hitch in my giddyup”, “when it rains, it pours”, and I could go on and on. Even built a reputation with my kid’s friends for my corny, old-school references.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>(Ahem)…Speaking as the house Jeopardy champion, I can tell you that, as much as I wish it were true, winning on Jeopardy is not necessarily a demonstration of being particularly smart. Being able to play Jeopardy well is more of a knack than a marker for intelligence.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s true that stupid person couldn’t win on Jeopardy, probably because they wouldn’t be very good at picking up on things hidden in or implied by the clues. I’ve met a lot of Jeopardy champions over the years, and I’ve never met one that wasn’t a bigtime reader. You have to acquire a vast landfill of useless information somehow. But you certainly don’t need to be exceptionally smart in the Newton, Mozart, or Einstein sense.</p>
<p>A complete list of the Jeopardy college champions (and the other contestants too) and their respective schools can be found here:</p>
<p><a href=“List of Jeopardy! tournaments and events - Wikipedia”>List of Jeopardy! tournaments and events - Wikipedia;
<p>As you can see, they come from colleges all over the place. Not just selective schools.</p>
<p>Sue22,
I am still musing over what circumstances could bring the word “detritus” into an everyday conversation, LOL!! </p>
<p>When we were kids, we latched onto the word “coprolite” and would look for opportunities to bring it into a conversation. </p>
<p>I think there is a big difference between the vocabulary one might choose to use in conversational speech vs the TOPICS one talks about. If we have a general knowledge or familiarity with the subject, we can typically follow the conversation. But if the topic is largely foreign, then it is going to take a very simplified explanation to follow along. If someone brings up some esoteric topic or something with which we are unfamiliar, we can either smile and not while they continue their soliloquy, or we can attempt to find a way to actually have a discussion, or conversation of some sort. I know when I ask my s’s about their work, they have to really put it in laymans terms for me to follow the bouncing ball. But they are responding to a question, not having a monologue. </p>
<p>Oh rats, I missed the end of Jeopardy. Don’t know who won.</p>
<p>I’m going to describe something I haven’t completely thought through.</p>
<p>But my friend referenced above enjoys spending time with me and others – decently smart people – as much or more than peers/friends at his level. He doesn’t view me as 75 or 85% of him or his capacity. And he appreciates things about my intelligence that are different than his, including a strength or two that he admires as something he believes he may be a little short on. And I can say with some vague confidence that he’s learned about as much from me as I have from him. But it’s not really about comparing who has what in terms of personal/intellectual/emotional assets, but rather that we really enjoy being in each other’s company. We appreciate the other one in a full way.</p>
<p>I began with the above example so the next one won’t be dismissed entirely as just a function of parental pride.</p>
<p>The realistic reach/match schools for my kids (using “rankings”) fell in the 20ish-40 range for Unis and 15ish-40 range for LACs, with the sweet spots probably in the 25-35 range. I don’t view either as only 85 to 90% of what kids “superior” to that are. I experience them as entirely whole. And they each have qualities that I think are incredible. I am absolutely thrilled with who they are who they are becoming. And I know I would feel the same if they were 100-150 points lower on their scores and a few decimal points lower on gpa. We would have no doubt targeted a different set of schools but I would have been just as into it, and just as into how great the different set of schools are. in other words, I think a lot of folks here have a pretty decent sense of where there kids are at they they develop a sense of what schools seem optimal in that individual case, and when the kid gets in one of the ones that was a fave you and the kid are just as thrilled as the parent and kid who gets the fat envelope (or fat electronic notice) from HYPSM. At least of course until one logs onto to something like CC :).</p>
<p>And while I can admit I wouldn’t wish for a kid a with Downs, I am fairly certain I would feel exactly the same way about that kid if I had one.</p>
<h1>533…and I don’t think anyone disagreed with that. At least not me. My point is that we continuously adjust our communications – up, down, sideways, whatever – without even thinking about to optimize communication in whatever the situation is.</h1>
<p>Thanks for popping in to respond, Coureur. I have a good friend who also won a fair amount on Jeopardy as well, but hes been doing academic bowls since we were in HS. He is both smart and very good at this. Thinks very quickly on his feet and is a bastion of useless information. I don’t think you have to be an Einstein type genius, but you have to understand the nuances of the turns of a phrase, know which file drawer to go in in your head, and have a ton of knowledge in your head as well. And do it all in a millisecond. Very impressive.</p>
<p>Our s’s babysitter (from days gone by), now an attorney, was on Jeopardy last week. He started out great, then crashed and burned :(</p>
<p>jym626-
It looks like was Cindy Cammarn from Bowdoin.</p>
<p>I have no idea what finalchild said in post #537. I read it multiple times and still couldn’t figure out the connection between the second and fourth paragraph. Am I missing something?</p>