Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Irony of Mensa

I think I might have realized this before, but I only got reminded of it today. There is an adjective in Spanish called "mensa" (the feminine form of menso) that means stupid. (If you say things correctly, it can actually be used in an affectionate manner.)

The reason that this is so bloody awesome is that Mensa is the "International High IQ Society". Nice!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That´s right¡¡¡ but there is another interpretation of the term mensa as a contraction of MENS(mente=mind) and SANA(sana=healthy) in the famous Latin quotation, (Wiki said)

Mens sana in corpore sano( often translated as, "a healthy mind in a healthy body" OR "A sound mind in a sound body" )

Greetings,

MA

Mason said...

I don't deny the existence of other meanings. Nevertheless, those meanings that make the name sensible (even if the organization's self-description is absurd) don't remove the irony that I am pointing out.

Anonymous said...

;)
correct. It´s true¡¡¡¡

MA

GFreak said...

Nova....
;-)