But I don't even know Swahili!

[redbird]

Someone over on alt.poly is calling various people who have been disagreeing with her and asking her to share the responsibility for writing understandably (rather than demanding that we read her mind instead of her words) "over-educated". I can't possibly be over-educated: I don't understand quantum mechanics, know almost no African history, and don't know Swahili or Chinese or any of the language of Papua New Guinea. I've never read Proust or Milton, and I don't know the infield-fly rule or how to knit a sweater.

How can anyone since Gutenberg be over-educated, when there's so much to know and so little time to learn it all?

Edit: I strongly recommend the discussion in wild_irises' journal that grew out of this: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wild_irises/3407.html?view=19791#t19791

Comments

[numbat.livejournal.com]

Of course you don't know Swahili. There isn't a Swahili on LJ yet. Why isn't there a Swahili on LJ yet? This is a serious oversight on somebody's part.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

"Haba na haba hujaza kibaba." Or, "little by little fills the measure." The one bit of Kiswahili I remember from my "Classical Literature of Islam and Persia" class my first semester of collge (cor crikey, 13 years ago now! Ouch.)