Posts by Dr. Boli
KNOW YOUR ROAD SIGNS.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
THE ROYAL ROAD TO PRONOUNCING SCRIPTURAL NAMES.
Dr. Boli hesitated for several days to answer this comment, because he was not sure whether he had interpreted his correspondent correctly, and he did not want seem critical of a correspondent whose participation over many years has added immeasurably to the pleasure Dr. Boli takes in producing this Magazine. We decided to write this long answer as an article partly because it seems to illustrate an interesting phenomenon, partly because it gives us an opportunity to explain how you, too, can have an impressive parlor trick for very little effort, and partly because we had nothing else prepared for today.
We hope Herr von Hindenberg will forgive us if we have misinterpreted his figured pronunciation, but it looks to Dr. Boli as though what he has identified as a “morph” is the correct English pronunciation: long I, accent on the second syllable.
We should say the correct English Protestant pronunciation. Until the late twentieth century, Catholics had a different set of Scriptural names, using the Latin spellings of the Vulgate, so that Elisha’s name was Eliseus (el-i-SEE-us). In the King James Version of the Bible, Protestants had to deal with these spellings when the names came up in the New Testament and the Apocrypha, so that it was necessary to explain to schoolchildren that Jesus meant Elisha when he said, “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). Later Protestant versions regularized the names, using the Old Testament spellings in the New Testament as well.
With the New American Bible, American Catholics adopted the Protestant forms of the names, but it seems to Dr. Boli that they have been a little tentative about their pronunciations ever since. In particular, he has heard many Catholics say “e-LISH-uh” for Elisha, and sometimes even “e-LEESH-uh.” But so far he has not seen any printed reference that gives anything other than the standard English pronunciation.
The rules for the English pronunciation of Scripture names, in the spellings that Protestants and Catholics now agree on, are simple, and they are only three in number:
1. Forget any smattering of learning you might have come across about Hebrew or Greek. We are speaking English, and the names have English pronunciations.
2. Every syllable is pronounced; there is no silent E.
3. Look in a pronouncing Bible (or a Bible dictionary) to find the accent for any name you come across.
That last one feels like cheating, but it is the easiest way to deal with the problem.
Some editions of the Bible go all out on pronunciation helps, marking all the syllable divisions and the length of every vowel, so that “Elisha” might come out “E•lī′shȧ” (the dot over the A meaning that it is pronounced with the indistinct “uh” sound linguists call the schwa). That is distracting for ordinary reading, so most Bibles that give any indication of pronunciation simply mark the accents: “Eli′sha.” But even these use a very simple code to tell you the length of the vowel in the accented syllable. If the accent mark comes directly after the vowel, the vowel is long. If the accent mark comes after an intervening consonant, the vowel in that syllable is short. Thus Eli′sha (ee-LIGH-shuh, with the I long), but Elish′ama (e-LISH-uh-muh, with the I short). You will notice that the unaccented syllables are not determined by this method, but that scarcely makes any difference. No one will notice whether you say “ee-LIGH-shah” or “uh-LIGH-shuh”; it is the accented syllable that matters.
Once again, we hope our correspondent will forgive us if we have misinterpreted him; and if we have not misinterpreted him, we hope he will not think we have meant any unkindness. He gave us a free subject for an article, and subjects for articles are valuable commodities.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
YOU MIGHT BE A POLYMATH IF…
That is Dr. Johnson’s definition of polymathy, and like most of his definitions it is hard to improve on. The word polymath comes straight from the Greek term πολυμαθής, used by both Plato and Aristotle (among others), which means “having learned a lot.” It is not a complicated idea.
So why are so many people asking the question “Am I a polymath”?
“This quiz explores whether you have the traits of a polymath,” says one site. “How does one know if they’re a polymath?” asks a random Reddit poster. “How do I know if I am a polymath?” asks someone on Quora. An Instagram post: “5 signs of a polymathic mind. How many did you get?” “Psychology of How to Recognize a Polymath,” “5 Signs You’re a Polymath,” “5 Signs You Might Be a Polymath,” “5 Rare Signs You’re a Polymath,” “10 Signs You’re a Polymath,” and “5 Signs You’re a Polymath (Most People Don’t Even Know They Are),” all on YouTube. The canonical number of signs seems to be five; the outliers who find seven signs or ten signs are probably just making things up. No, Dr. Boli isn’t going to link to all those, because that would be work, and therefore against his principles.
The most revealing title comes from the magazine Forbes: “Do You Have a ‘Polymathic Personality’? A Psychologist Explains.”
Now we understand what is going on. Anyone can look up the definition of “polymath” in the dictionary. But these people are looking for a diagnosis, not a definition. They want to find out what box they belong in, because popular culture demands that you must fit in a box with a label, and once you are properly tagged you must go into your box and stay there and never come out. It is a dreadfully important thing to know what shelf you belong on, and it comes with benefits as well. Once you have found your pigeonhole, you have an excuse for all kinds of laziness and impoliteness. “I can’t help it,” you can say. “I’m a polymath.” (Thus many of the titles on YouTube are followed by “Society Can’t Handle You,” meaning that teachers and colleagues keep telling you that you ought to be more polite, but you don’t want to be.)
Now, it is true that there are social forces that might make a polymath, in Dr. Johnson’s definition, feel uncomfortable. People of limited brain will tell people who are interested in the world around them that they are wasting their time. Stop smelling the mignonette and gazing at the sunset and get back to the important thing, which is earning your MBA. We suspect that many of the people out there looking for a diagnosis are simply looking for an excuse for being delighted by geometry or Baroque music or wild birds, because in their youth they had constant voices around them telling them to knuckle down and stick to their majors. Perhaps a diagnosis of polymathy is a real benefit to these people, because it allows them to make peace with their own innate tendency to find the world interesting. Perhaps they were tortured by guilt every time they enjoyed an obscure Restoration dramatist that no one else seemed to know about, and now at last they can let the guilt go and be themselves.
But what does it say about our culture that we need a psychological diagnosis of polymathy in order to find more than one thing interesting? What does it mean when we find dozens of articles describing polymathy as neurodivergence—a word usually reserved for saying nice things about psychological difficulties like dyslexia that we wish we didn’t have?
To Dr. Boli, what it says is that we have all accepted slavery as our natural condition. We thought we had won our freedom from slavery. We thought that equality was within our grasp, and we were right: but instead of bringing the slaves up to the level of the former masters, we gradually brought everyone down to the level of the former slaves. It is not for us to have any aspirations beyond the task at hand. We have our assignments, and there will be taskmasters to herd us back if we slack off.
This does not mean that we live like slaves materially. We have very nice things. Even the poor in the United States are generally rich by world standards. But we are slaves intellectually. A rich person of two centuries ago would have been expected as a matter of course to have some interest in literature, in architecture, in music, in science, and in a number of other things that distinguished a lady or a gentleman from a common laborer. Now our rich are perhaps the most slavish of us all: they devote their minds exclusively to the pursuit of wealth, and we reward their devotion not just with money but also with our adulation.
So if you are interested in more than one thing, accept your diagnosis. Polymathy is your certificate of manumission, your hall pass, your get-out-of-jail-free card, the thing that makes it possible for you to say, “I’m allowed to be interested in more than one thing.” In fact, you are not just allowed: you are required. Polymathy is your label; you must get into your box and stay there, just like everybody else. But the box labeled “polymath” is the only box that turns out to be as big as the whole universe.
IN SCIENCE NEWS.
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A NURSERY RHYME.
Mary, Mary,
Temporary,
How does your day go by?
Three bathroom breaks,
Two Tastykakes,
And unlimited humble pie.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
From DR. BOLI’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY.
Lassitude (noun).—The state of being young, female, and Scottish.