Devaluation of the Word Genius

The word genius has become an ambiguous term in today's society and is rarely used with the original meaning. Today, the word is used to describe not only a person's intelligence, but someone's creativity, a clever idea, or occasionally a marketing term for a job or product. It's genius when a person finds a clever way to solve a problem, and it's genius when an application is used to automatically create a playlist on an iPod. With the several ways genius is used, it comes into question as to what genius actually is, and how it should be used.

The Oxford English Dictionary currently defines genius as, "an exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability; a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect." It is widely understood in this respect, but does not apply in all cases that the word is being used for today. The Oxford English Dictionary states the origin of the word is from the Latin root of gignere. The original sense was 'tutelary spirit attendant on a person', which gave rise to a sense 'a person's characteristic disposition', which led to a sense 'a person's natural ability', and finally 'exceptional natural ability'. Even with a solid definition and origin of the word, it is still difficult to understand why it is used the way it is today.

Based on the standard Binet-Stanford IQ test, a genius is an individual with an intellectual quotient of 140 or higher. The reliability of IQ tests has been this discussion of psychologists for decades; however, they are generally accepted as very reliable among the professional community. As an example, my personal score came to 180 and is labeled a "profoundly gifted". This does not confirm or deny that I am in fact a genius, but only that I have the deductive reasoning of others known as geniuses.

When describing people in history known as geniuses, we have familiar names with completely different backgrounds. For example, Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton are both considered geniuses. They both did work in physics and cosmology that advanced science to what it is today. Leonardo de Vinci and Ludwig von Beethoven are also both considered geniuses, but in art instead of science. The book, To Kill a Mockingbird is considered a piece of literary genius. The author felt that her future literary work would not get better and did not consider herself a genius; however, the work she created was in itself genius. Another example of an idea that is genius is sliced bread. It is widely used today as a standard as to what is a genius idea (i.e. "the best thing since sliced bread"). However,