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  1. Jul 2021
    1. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, bookful blockheads, ignorantly read. There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.

      Interesting to see so many different words to describe not just those who are poorly read, but those who have misunderstood or misapplied their reading.

      Historically, I wonder how much of this may have been applied to those who misused quotations out of context?