Mental Floss: What's the Difference?: Telling Egg Rolls from Spring Rolls, Idiots from Morons―Tips for Sounding Like a Genius

Mental Floss: What's the Difference?: Telling Egg Rolls from Spring Rolls, Idiots from Morons―Tips for Sounding Like a Genius

Enlighten Up Already! Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! Want to learn how to tell egg rolls from spring rolls, nuclear bombs from dirty nuclear bombs, or even how to tell an idiot from a moron (there's a real scientific difference)? Piece of cake! Whether you're trying to impress your boss, your mother-in-law, attractive singles, or a pack of fourth graders (you know how they love semantics), mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius. “Part scholarly journal, part Spy magazine protégé.” - Charlotte Observer “For the discerning intellect, mental_floss cleans out the cobwebs.” - Chicago Tribune “A lot like that professor of yours who peppered his tests with raunchy jokes: it makes learning fun.” - Newsweek “A delightfully eccentric and eclectic new magazine.” - Washington Post “The titans of trivia.” - Newsweek “An ideal reference to settle arguments or jog your memory.” - Calgary Herald Enlighten Up Already! Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! Want to learn how to tell egg rolls from spring rolls, nuclear bombs from dirty nuclear bombs, or even how to tell an idiot from a moron (there's a real scientific difference)? Piece of cake! Whether you're trying to impress your boss, your mother-in-law, attractive singles, or a pack of fourth graders (you know how they love semantics), mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius. Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur met as first year students at Duke University. Ignoring the lures of law school and investment banking, the pair co-founded mental_floss and have been grinning ever since. Maggie Koerth-Baker is a freelance journalist and a former assistant editor at mental_floss magazine, where she consistently astounded Will and Mangesh with her amazingness. Mental Floss: What's the Difference? By Virginia Editors of Mental Floss HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2006 Virginia Editors of Mental Floss All right reserved. ISBN: 0060882492 Chapter One Idiot vs. Moron The Dilemma: You want to assail someone's intelligence, but you don't know quite which word to use, which calls into question your own intellect. People You Can Impress: Well, idiots and morons both, for starters. But also psychologists. And you really, really need to impress psychologists, because—as you'll see—you don't want them to think you're an idiot. The Quick Trick: These days, the words are completely synonymous. But back in the dark days of psychology (which is to say until about 30 years ago), there was a difference, and here's the quick trick psychologists used: Ask a question. If your subject answers, they're a moron at worst. If they don't answer, you might have an idiot on your hands. The Explanation: Anyone who says that political correctness never accomplished anything worthwhile should take a long, hard look at the lot of the idiot. In 1911, French psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon created the first modern intelligence test, which measured intelligence (hence the "intelligence quotient") based on whether children could accomplish tasks like pointing to their nose (honestly) and counting pennies. The concept of "IQ" followed soon after, and psychologists fell so deeply in love with the scientific nature of the tests that they created classification systems. Any child with an IQ of above 70 was considered "normal," while those with scores above 130 were considered "gifted." To classify scores below 70, psychologists invented a nomenclature of retardation. Those with IQs between 51 and 70 were called morons . Morons had adequate learning skills to complete menial tasks and communicate. Imbeciles , with IQs between 26 and 50, never progressed past a mental age of about six. And the lowest of all were the idiots , with IQs between 0 and 25, who were characterized by poor motor skills, extremely limited communication, and little response to stimulus. The moron/imbecile/idiot classifications remained popular, amazingly, until the early 1970s, when people started to note that the developmentally disabled have enough difficulties without being saddled with condescending labels. Today the classification system is one category broader— moron, imbecile , and idiot have been replaced with mild, moderate, severe, and profound retardation —and diagnostic factors other than IQ are considered in making a diagnosis. I.e. vs. E.g. The Dilemma: You're reading a document that's riddled with needless, pretentious Latin abbreviations (a legal brief, e.g., or mental_floss 's exploration of differences&8212i.e., this book), but your year of high school Latin has been obscured by the fog of memory. People You Can Impress: Roman emperors, lawyers, and grammar nerds The Quick Trick: E.g. means "for