"a person of great learning in several fields of study; polyhistor.
[Origin: 1615–25; < Gk polymaths learned, having learned much, equiv. to poly- poly- + -mathés, adj. deriv. of manthánein to learn]"
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006)
I read this entry & its comments and thought, "I'm a generalist! No, wait, I'm a specialist! No, wait. . ."
I'd call myself a jack of all trades master of none, but then I stop and remember some of the "trades" in question:
- low-polgonal 3D environment modeling for real-time use - audio engineering > studio engineering specialty > non-linear editing subspecialty - Scotch single malt whisky affinity, particularly the island varieties, most particularly those from Islay
and so on. . .
The thing I've noticed most from being this kind of person is that if you have a layman's knowledge of a great many things and an expert knowledge of some, people "carry over" being impressed with your knowledge level and tend to think you have an expertise in any topic you can address intelligently.
(Ex: I have a terrible secret - though some consider me an expert on the works of Shakespeare, I haven't read the majority of his plays. . . including Macbeth and King Lear. I have read quirky relatively unknown ones like Measure for Measure, which makes people assume I finished the biggies and then moved on down the canon. Nope, I just went off rabbit-trailing into the obscure ones.)
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Date: Sun, Jan. 27th, 2008 07:06 pm (UTC)"a person of great learning in several fields of study; polyhistor.
[Origin: 1615–25; < Gk polymaths learned, having learned much, equiv. to poly- poly- + -mathés, adj. deriv. of manthánein to learn]"
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006)
I read this entry & its comments and thought, "I'm a generalist! No, wait, I'm a specialist! No, wait. . ."
I'd call myself a jack of all trades master of none, but then I stop and remember some of the "trades" in question:
- low-polgonal 3D environment modeling for real-time use
- audio engineering > studio engineering specialty > non-linear editing subspecialty
- Scotch single malt whisky affinity, particularly the island varieties, most particularly those from Islay
and so on. . .
The thing I've noticed most from being this kind of person is that if you have a layman's knowledge of a great many things and an expert knowledge of some, people "carry over" being impressed with your knowledge level and tend to think you have an expertise in any topic you can address intelligently.
(Ex: I have a terrible secret - though some consider me an expert on the works of Shakespeare, I haven't read the majority of his plays. . . including Macbeth and King Lear. I have read quirky relatively unknown ones like Measure for Measure, which makes people assume I finished the biggies and then moved on down the canon. Nope, I just went off rabbit-trailing into the obscure ones.)