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Show 'Do You Know It All?' Aristotle, one of the greatest, wisest and most learned of the ancient Hellenes, once said, "All that I know is that I know nothing." One of his famous contemporaries, Diogenes, proved to himself and others that though a man may be superior in many respects, there is no one who is able to say, "I have learned all there is to know." The story goes, that Diogenes always used to carry around with him a gourd for drinking purposes, that hung on the belt of his dress. It was an exceedingly clumsy object and often-times caused him no little discomfort. One day while wandering through the mountains, he observed ob-served a shepherd drinking water from a stream, using his hands as a receptacle for transferring the water from the stream to his mouth. Diogenes, thoroughly disgusted with himself, him-self, wrenched the gourd from his belt," smashed it to the ground and cried, "What a fool I've been ! All these years I've carried this wretched object around with me when nature has already provided a means." As brilliant as was this man, he learned something that he hadn't known from a shepherd. shep-herd. This "know it all" attitude unfortunately is most prevalent in high schools. The sophomores sopho-mores who are content with their present quantity quant-ity of knowledge might be interested to know the origin of the word "sophomore." It is derived de-rived from two Greek words, sophos, meaning wise, and moros, meaning foolish. Sophos, he knows everything; moros, he knows nothing. In other words, he thinks he knows everything, but he really knows nothing; complacent pretentions, or complete assurance, coupled with crudeness and ignorance. j |