"What is ignoramus?" - Such a question can often be heard. We will readily explain the meaning of the word and give examples.
Meaning
An ignoramus is a person who is not enlightened in certain areas of knowledge. Is it worth talking about the relativity of this concept? There are people who can build or design an airplane, but they may well not read art books at all and don’t understand why Leo Tolstoy is so great or, for example, George Orwell.
Sherlock Holmes as an example of brilliant ignoramus
Once we understand what ignoramus is, we can turn to examples. Of course, this will be a literary or rather cinematic example.
Let us recall the famous conversation in the movie “Acquaintance” between Holmes and Dr. Watson, where the latter tells the former directly that he is a man of sharp mind, but ignorant in all other aspects. Naturally, education was meant. Holmes knows almost nothing about Copernicus, Joan of Arc and Aristotle, although the name of the first on this list seems vaguely familiar to him. Watson is shocked by the cultural illiteracy of his future colleague, but Holmes is not embarrassed and contrasts Watson's historical and humanitarian knowledge with his purely practical skills, for example, the ability to distinguish the dirt of one street of London from another or the ashes of one cigar from another.
Therefore, if the reader is asked what the ignoramus is, then he, without a doubt, can say: this is Sherlock Holmes (with well-known reservations). There are interesting discoveries, and quite unexpected ones.
But Watson, meanwhile, thinks horrified of a utilitarian world where no one is interested in philosophy, literature and history, but only in what is necessary for life. Holmes reassures his friend and says that he is so alone. Interestingly, does the famous detective know the word “ignoramus”? Not a fact, because for business it is completely useless to him.
Almost 40 years have passed since the release of the film, for it was released in 1979. And now we modern people understand that Holmes’s ignorance is not yet the worst that you can imagine. Although Holmes is an ignoramus, he is a passionate man. Perhaps he would be interested in literature and history, if he had time, but he gives himself entirely to work. Now people are born absolutely terrible, who absolutely do not understand anything, and do not even want to learn - this is a real image of ignorance that scares. The theme is endless and inexhaustible, but we need to move on. To understand what ignoramus is, one more important aspect needs to be highlighted.
Ignorant and ignorant
Of particular difficulty in people is the distinction between the two concepts that are placed in the subtitle. In fact, there is no difficulty here. You just need to remember that an ignoramus is a person who is uninformed in the field of science, technology, history and literature, and an ignoramus is a man who is ill-bred and uncultured in the everyday sense. It’s even easier to understand the difference with examples. The man who puts his feet on the table at the dinner party is ignorant, and the man who does not see the stylistic difference between Turgenev and Gogol is ignorant. Now, we think, the question will not arise, what is ignorance and ignorance, what is the difference. We explained everything thoroughly.
What is worse - to be ignorant or ignorant?
Here is a long-standing debate about two phenomena that are one worse than the other. True, suppose that being ignorant is not so scary as ignorant, for the latter concept captures primarily the everyday bad manners of a person, but, as we know, all norms and rules are relative. Therefore, each person is free from two evils to choose his own.
We hope that it is clear what ignoramus is, and now the reader will not have difficulties with the use of the concept and with its explanation.