Nagging Question--was: Hot new Einstein quote

[Herb Stahlke]

I remember about thirty years ago telling my then 12-year-old son that
Beethoven was a genius.  His incredulous response was, "But he was
just a musician!"

Herb

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Hunter, Lynne R CIV
SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700 <lynne.hunter at navy.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700"
>               <lynne.hunter at NAVY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Nagging Question--was: Hot new Einstein quote
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've tried to keep quiet about this, but it just keeps nagging me: How
> do we know that Albert Einstein was "even smarter than Mark Twain"? Do
> we just accept that as a given? Is it because Einstein was a genius in
> math and science and Mark Twain was _only_ a genius in literature? Would
> we automatically say that Sir Isaac Newton was smarter than Shakespeare,
> or that any person highly accomplished in the sciences is _smarter_ than
> a person accomplished in other disciplines? Does math and science trump
> other fields even among this company (as it does among the general
> population, evidently contributing to the reverence for technology and
> its consequences)? Does anybody else feel uneasy about making these
> comparisons?
>
> Lynne Hunter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 3:04 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Hot new Einstein quote
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Hot new Einstein quote
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
> This has been cybercirculating for a couple of weeks, attributed Albert
> Einstein, who was even smarter than Mark Twain:
>
> =93I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The
> world
> will only have a generation of idiots.=94
>
> I find no confirmation that Einstein ever said anything like this, and
> no
> citations before almost this minute. Note the sloppy placement of
> "only,"
> the peculiarly inarticulate use of "overlap with," the off-center use of
> "the technology."
>
> It also has the same two-declarative-sentence structure of many popular
> bogus quotes.
>
> JL
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org