“Why Self-Educated Learners Often Come Up Short” http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2010/02/24/self-education-failings/
Quotation: “I have a theory that the most successful people in life aren’t the busiest people or the most relaxed people. They are the ones who have the greatest ability to commit to something nobody else forces them to do.”
You’re right, wnoise, “village idiot” is part of an idiom but one I don’t like at all and I don’t think I’m particular in this regard.
I should have put my objection as “‘Village idiot’ is gravely anachronistic unless you want to be insensitive by subsuming a plethora of medical conditions and social determinants under a dated, derogatory term for mentally disabled people.”
This may sound like nit-picking but obviously said intelligence graph is an important item in SIAI’s symbolic tool kit and therefore every detail should be right. When I see the graph, I’m always thinking: Please, “for the love of cute kittens”, change the “village idiot”!