Sherlock Holmes and intelligent ignorance
Sherlock Holmes remains one of the most remarkable examples of an ignoramus. We are talking about the Soviet film adaptation of 1979 - “Acquaintance”. In it, as you might guess, friends and colleagues meet for the first time - Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. And the great detective amazes the doctor with his concept of “conscious ignorance.” Holmes knows nothing about historical figures such as Copernicus, Aristotle or Joan of Arc, but he can easily distinguish the dirt of one London street from another. The detective is well versed in chemistry. In other words, Holmes was completely lost in what he was doing. Watson is amazed. Therefore, to the question “Who is the ignoramus?” we can answer with confidence: this is a person like Holmes.
But let's not rush to conclusions. It turns out that the great detective has his own theory. He believes that the brain is an attic, and a fool drags everything that comes to hand there. A smart person (i.e. Holmes) lifts into the attic only what is needed, and all his tools necessary for the job are in perfect order!
Essay on ignorance of the exam
The problem of ignorance, inflated self-esteem Text (1) Freedom of the press and the emergence of the Internet are the great achievements of our era. (2) But the steps of progress also have their shadow sides. (3) Nowadays, this side is the rapid development of amateurism and the decline in the prestige of professionalism. (4) Television willingly arranges debates between professionals and amateurs. (5) This looks like a noble attempt to find the truth. (6) But in the eyes of the majority of the public, such a debate is won not by the one on whose side logic is, but by the one who is less embarrassed to say anything in a confident tone. (7) And such, of course, will always turn out to be an amateur, not a scientist. (8) A popular thesis is that there is no truth, but only different opinions. (9) And the next one is that every opinion is no less valuable than any other. (Y) The idea of equality of all possible opinions is extremely flattering, in particular, to the many young people living on the Internet, this opens up an immediate opportunity for them to voice their opinion on any issue. (11) On the Internet there are an incredible number of know-it-alls who boldly and confidently speak out - as a rule, the opposite of what traditional science says. (12) Amateur fabrications on the history of words and the history of entire languages are especially fashionable. (13) The majority of amateur linguists try to seem like researchers who have said a new word in science. (14) And, of course, it is very important for them to devalue professional science in the eyes of the reader, to portray it as a bunch of inert dogmas, completely unnecessary for a free-thinking reader. (15) There are also those who openly declare that their statements about language are based only on intuition, on insight... (16) And almost always amateur linguists draw fantastic conclusions about history from their initial calculations. (17) Moreover, these are almost always ideologically oriented conclusions. (18) Let’s say, if we are talking about Russia, then some completely limitless power of the Russian nation in crazy antiquity is depicted. (19) I will give an approximate line of reasoning. (20) Some English net (“network”) is similar to the Russian no. (21) True, it seems impossible to link the meanings in any way. (22) But this is precisely the remarkable property of an amateur linguist: there are no two concepts that he cannot connect. (23) For example, like this: “a net is something where there is no way out for fish.” (24) And the conclusion will be serious: “Ah! This means that the British took this word from us!” (25) One could, of course, ask why not the other way around, but this is not accepted among amateurs. (26) That all the words are taken from Russian is stated in all their works with approximately the following justification. (27) I’ll make a reservation that similar things are observed among other nations (I won’t name them so as not to offend anyone). (28) In the same way, they write about the insane antiquity of the corresponding ethnic group and “prove” that all other peoples of the world descended from it. (29) Reading such works may even turn out to be entertaining, but just know for sure: they are from the genre of fiction, no matter how much the author assures you that this is scientific research. (30) Should such fabrications be criticized? (31) There is a fairly widespread position in the scientific community that this is an ordinary childhood illness that will go away on its own. (32) Alas, this optimistic point of view is not confirmed by practice: over the past 10-20 years, the circle of works of this kind has expanded enormously, and, what is most distressing, the circle of their fans, too. (33) In the press we already encounter, for example, the following formulation: “Truth is achieved not by exact science, but by public consent.” (34) Fortunately, it still seems unthinkable for television debates and voting to determine what is true and what is false. (35) But it cannot be guaranteed that the development of the trend will not lead to this. (According to AL. Zaliznyak) Essay The Internet has firmly entered our lives at all levels of its existence, from the highest matters to everyday recipes for preparing dinner. “Look on the Internet” is a common phrase for both office workers and schoolchildren. Everyone uses the services of the Internet and considers themselves so advanced that they have the right to challenge the truth. This is stated in the text of the famous linguist A. A. Zaliznyak. The author is concerned about the amateurish attitude of modern man to information obtained on the Internet, which he always takes on faith. But the scientist is especially concerned about the pseudoscientific attitude of Russian speakers towards their native word. What was once called “folk etymology”, “entymology” can now be found everywhere. But if earlier they were ashamed of this and laughed at it, now they boast about it, like the unlucky hero of the story “Cut off” by V. Shukshin. Gleb Kapustin did not have the skills to search the Internet, because it simply did not exist then, but, having picked up clever phrases from newspapers and magazines, he considered himself the smartest in the village. It gave him particular pleasure when he puzzled truly educated and cultured people with his abstruse questions. This happened during the Zhuravlevs’ visit to Grandma Agafya. The candidate of sciences and his wife were unable to rebuff Kapustin only because they did not understand what this whole conversation about the Moon, shamans and candidates was all about. As well-mannered and highly educated people, they did not get involved with Kapustin, but Gleb walked like a gogol among his illiterate fellow villagers and boasted that he had “cut off” the candidates. One can only envy the patience of the Zhuravlevs, because personally such a situation would throw me off balance overnight. The primitiveness of judgments gleaned from the Internet and the self-confidence in the correctness of those who have not even checked the accuracy of the information cannot leave anyone indifferent, so I completely share the indignation of linguist A.A. Zaliznyaka. Distorting historical facts and the etymology of words will not lead to anything good. I remember that I was once given a book to read on the history of our Fatherland, which was called “Prince Rurik. Where did the Russian land come from? It’s good that I immediately noticed that the author of this book is humorist Mikhail Zadornov. But KE.K Zh6 convincingly distorts historical facts in this book! He got everything wrong, from Rurik and his origins to the fact that half of the English words were borrowed from the Russian language! Of course, one can attribute these erroneous judgments to patriotic feelings, but this does not justify the comedian in our eyes. Still, science should be science, and not fiction and conjecture. For the latter, there is another genre - science fiction. In conclusion, I would like to remind everyone of the well-known fact that the Internet is a pit. And what most often ends up in the pit is something that, alas, cannot be called important, useful and correct. Therefore, we all need to remember the popular wisdom: “Trust, but verify.”
Ace Ventura as an example of controlled ignorance
"Animal Detective" is a real ignoramus. Let the reader remember, if he saw the film “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” how the main character behaves in public places. Do you remember? After all, this is horror and shame for everyone around. True, there is one “but”: Ace’s everyday ignorance, as a rule, pursues a specific goal. Sometimes he needs it to piss off a suspect, sometimes he uses it to get information.
In any case, we have already thoroughly studied the concepts of “ignorant” and “ignorant.” The difference is clear to us. An ignoramus is an uneducated person who does not have any knowledge. And an ignoramus is an ill-mannered person.
The history of the origin of these words
Many people confuse the meaning of the characteristics “ignorant” and “ignorant” and quite often use them in speech for other purposes. It is interesting that a couple of centuries ago, in the “Pushkin era”, these two words were indeed forms of the same noun, and only the Russian lexicographer V.I. Dal identified the fundamental difference between them.
In order to more accurately understand the difference between “ignoramus” and “ignorant”, it is necessary to get acquainted with the history of the appearance of these words in modern Russian.
The word “ignoramus” is originally Russian. It means a rude and uncouth person . In the Old Russian language there was also the word “vezha”, which has now almost fallen out of use.
In Dahl's dictionary, o has the opposite meaning and characterizes a person who knows the customs and rules of secular address. In modern Russian, a derivative form from the word “vezha” is often used - politeness .
The word “ignoramus” came into modern speech from the Old Church Slavonic language. Its special origin is evidenced by the letter combination “zhd”. In the modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, next to it there is a note “obsolete”.
The meaning of the word “ignoramus” is uneducated, ignorant . The ancient ancestor of this word is “to know” - to know. Derivations from the word “to know” in modern language are well known to everyone: after all, statement, department, unknown.
Offer
Let's imagine that there is a lesson going on. Petrov gets up and says: “The capital of Mozambique is Toulouse!” The geography teacher looks at him sadly and says: “Sit down, Petrov, you are mistaken.” And the neighbor on the desk says: “Oh, Vaska, what an ignoramus you are, every educated person knows that the capital of Mozambique is Madagascar!”
It is clear that in the example where the sentence is composed with the word “ignorant” there is too much humor. But let the reader himself find out the true capital of Mozambique.
Ignorance as a rebellion against the established order of things
Let's return to our film examples. Indeed, Holmes and Ace have reasons to be unconventional. Now let’s imagine that the whole world has become sickeningly cultured and reading. This would be a terrible reality, which is why ignoramuses and ignorant people would arise, who would dilute the excessive stiffness of other brothers.
Of course, in a world where everyone writes without errors, there is nothing wrong. At least that's what it seems like until this world came to an end. But humanity needs ignoramuses and ignoramuses, firstly, for diversity, and secondly, in order to understand the frontier of work on civilizing the population. In the end, if everyone is the same, it will be terribly boring.
A quick way to remember the difference
Remembering the meaning of the words ignorant and ignorant and understanding the difference between them can be difficult, given the subtle differences between their pronunciation in colloquial speech. A few simple ways:
- Conduct morphemic analysis and determine the root of the word. An ignoramus, that is, an ignorant person, is not at all the same as an ignoramus (impolite).
- Find synonyms. An ignorant person is a rude person. An ignoramus is a poorly educated, ignorant, incompetent person.
- Remember antonyms. The opposite of an ignoramus is a “vezha” (even if this noun has fallen out of use), that is, a cultured person who follows the rules of decency and etiquette. The antonym of an ignoramus is a knowledgeable, knowledgeable specialist in his field, a professional with a deep understanding of the subject.
To avoid mistakes and mixing similar words in spoken and written speech, you need to clearly understand the meaning of each of the paronyms . An ignoramus is an ill-mannered person, and an ignoramus is an illiterate and poorly educated person.
Once you understand the meanings of words, it will not be difficult to distinguish them, since in the modern world politeness and education have practically no connection with each other.
