If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I'm currently reading Christopher Newfield's book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I'll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from: https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well - the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
Well worth the read.
These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn't have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.
educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does.
I wouldn't be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
We didn't have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It's a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it's not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan "Fix the damn roads!" campaign. But I sure don't see any politician who seem interested.
I'd be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon
The NAEP stats.
To the degree that the states Brooks calls out have made good progress in their educational outcomes, I applaud them. No snark. Well done, I hope they continue. In general they've advanced from pretty bad to somewhere between not-so-bad and not bad at all, which is actually a big jump, and worth celebrating.
Good job. Keep it up.
If you look at the NAEP stuff you'll see that educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does. IMO it's more about the culture and history of the place, and what resources they bring to the table. Money, yes, but also an investment in the future mindset.
At the risk of coming off like a coastal elitist snob, I note that my adopted home state of Massachusetts does quite well. We aren't smarter than people in other states, we just have a long history of valuing education. A lot of the folks who settled the area were literate people, unusually so for their time. They valued education, and so they created pretty good schools. That culture persisted, and thus we do well on the NAEP stuff.
I'm glad to see that some states that historically have lagged in that area are taking steps to improve. Well done, carry on.
As an aside, I'll also say that Brooks annoys me. Perennially. I think he's sincere and I appreciate what I see as a real lack of cynicism. He seems to honestly be trying to make best sense of the world and his own life.
But I also think he's remarkably clueless. The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with "ordinary people" just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
I mean, he is genuinely a lifelong fan of the Mets, so by all means wear the hat. And if that helps break the ice, go for it. But I just don't think he's able to see outside of his white-shoe bubble.
He's just not a guy I think I need moral direction from. And that seems to be his primary way of framing his thoughts.
I hope Mr. Brooks will forgive me if I misjudge him here.
And that's enough stream of consciousness from me for one night.
With Brooks, you have to take care with any evidence he offers. Yes, there is a Southern surge, but the states lauded (specifically Mississippi and Alabama) have historically been on the bottom of any ranking, so I suspect that them moving up is partly statistical. The data is from the NEAP, which only checks students in the 4th, 8th and 12th grade and the bulk of the surge comes from a leap in 4th grade, important to be sure, but it also corresponds with increased federal mandates on testing from No Child left behind in 2002 under Bush and the revised act signed by Obama. Mississippi didn't even have any state level assessments until it joined the PARCC for one year and then opted out.
The NEAP uses a weighted average of subgroups and gives only 4 classifications, Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Below Basic. Now, it's a good thing that more students from Below Basic are lifted up. However, there is both a ceiling effect. Again, I don't think that this means the Southern Surge is all bullshit, but it's not like Mississippi and Alabama are becoming powerhouses, it is that they are becoming more like other states.
The last thing is that the Southern Surge can be partially attributed to the pandemic. Every place had massive drops because of the pandemic. I'm not surprised that states with less developed educational infrastructure (like Mississippi and Alabama) could get up more quickly. The Southern Surge is attributable to Mississippi and Alabama moving up in the rankings, but doesn't really talk about how and why other states dropped to make that happen.
I don't think that the Southern Surge is all hype, I've been reading a lot about the 'Science of Reading' approach, which replaces the Balanced Literacy approach and seems to have made a big difference in these cases. But I suspect that Southern states have had an advantage in shifting to a new system because the teachers in the old system were often under-trained or left to their own devices, so it has been easier to introduce it.
What you say about the reason for the class based segregation makes plenty of sense, russell. I must say, I was very surprised by this: Research by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli has demonstrated that red states are now much more active than blue states in adopting new education reform ideas. As a result, red states are leaping out ahead when it comes to student performance. The biggest education story of the last few years has been the so-called Southern surge, the significant rise in test scores in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.
I'd be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon - I had certainly never heard about it, but that's not particularly surprising I suppose.
class in America.
Yes, once upon a time there was a greater mix of higher-educated white collar professionals and non-college-grad working people in neighborhoods, schools, and social organizations.
It was like that when I was a kid. Doctors, lawyers, business executives lived in the same neighborhoods as cops, plumbers, local mom-n-pop business owners. Their kids went to the same schools, familes went to the same churches, etc. The doctors and lawyers might live in nicer houses, but still in the same town and general area. So, a while back, but not that far. In living memory, mine at least.
What's different? Among other things, higher-educated white collar professionals make a sh*t-ton more money relative to their non-college-grad working class than they did back then. This is from 2015 and EPI are a bunch of commies, of course, but it gets the idea across.
Higher-educated white collar professionals used to pay more in taxes. Non-college-educated working people used to be unionized a lot more than they are now.
I don't mean to be reductionist about it, but the increased income gap goes a long way to explaining the class-based segregation Brooks talks about. IMO.
Maybe instead of waxing nostalgic about the loss of our common values and social bonds, we could tax wealthy people a little more and support organized labor.
Sometimes things actually are as simple as that.
As far as the summit goes, it's just another episode in the Donald and Vlad show as far as I can tell. Trump clearly admires Putin, he adores bullies, autocrats, and "tough guys", and Putin checks all of those boxes. He's a Putin wanna-be, and if there is a more despicable role model on the face of the planet than Vladimir Putin, I'm at a loss as to who that might be.
I have no idea how things are going to play out in Ukraine, Canada and the EU will likely have something to say about it all, and Ukraine by god most certainly will. But it's pretty clear to me that Trump is not going to do anything of significance to hinder Putin's desire to annex eastern Ukraine for now, after which he will likely rebuild a bit and return for the rest of the meal.
Trump somehow combines the venality and corruption of Nixon with a breathtaking ignorance and incompetence all his own. He is a deeply stupid man. It's remarkable.
wj, I think you underestimate the effect on the Russian people of seeing Putin treated like an honoured guest in America. However, neither Ubu nor Witkoff nor any of their stooges have enough knowledge about internal Russian politics to understand that. Not to mention there is symbolic value in keeping tyrants and aggressors as isolated as possible, out of the G7 etc. But of course, with Ubu as POTUS, expecting any such idea to have currency is hopeless. I like TonyP's Make America Decent Again, but can't see it happening anytime soon. I dread the Zelensky meeting on Monday, and I can't imagine how he must feel.
It's pretty bad. Trump has gone from "stop fighting or else" to "carry on, we'll have some peace talks".
Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
I read some griping about Putin being "honored" by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.
Putin left Trump virtually speechless....given Trump's gonoerrhea mouth, quite a feat if you ask me. I wonder if the KGB hacked the Epstein files.
That Ukrainians will continue to die trying to deal with these monsters is absolutely enraging.
Re TonyP's comment, and a general thought about Alaskan resources... Those would be oil, natural gas, and coal for the most part. Russia already has lots of those.
Spent some time off and on this week adding a first cut illumination correction to the toy software for processing images of documents.
Original snapshot taken with a handheld iPad here.
Result of correcting various geometry impairments -- curled pages, perspective, orientation -- here.
First cut at doing some illumination correction here. The approach I've taken seems to do well at correcting problems caused purely by the light source being off to the side (darker sections where page curl has the surface normal vector pointing away from the light, brighter where the normal vector is pointing towards the light). The shadow in the lower right corner is from the iPad and will require a different approach to identify and correct. Or more likely, when I get closer to production I'll arrange things so the camera doesn't cast shadows.
Yesterday I made this comment on Charlie Pierce's blog at Esquire, and I stand by it:
The MAGAts who run Congress probably think that He, Trump owns Alaska's (and Ukraine's) resources and is therefore entitled to trade them to his KGB handler in exchange for a Noble* Prize. The rest of us need to do something about that, and I propose this: demand a commitment to deMAGAfication from any candidate for office who seeks our support. DeMAGAfication of government agencies, deMAGAfication of the courts, and deMAGAfication of "deals" made by the MAGAt-in-Chief. Of course a decent nation honors its commitments -- even those made under the previous regime -- but we can worry about that AFTER we Make America Decent Again.
--TP
*sic; look it up
Side note on "smart" and "posh": Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him "posh", but really in today's world it's hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on "normal usage" in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn't required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
wj: to make your strategy work properly it requires generating an actual random choice.
PRO TIP: #2 pencils used for multiple-choice have 6 sides: using a pen to impress 'dots' in the wood, 1 dot, 2 dots, etc for the sides. Need a random number? Roll the pencil. Fast and easy.
Computer tests mess that up, dammit.
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I'll take the 5th, thank you.
my perception of American English has both "crafty" and "cunning" as something that is intentionally deceptive
When my step-son was born, my wife's Scottish then mother-in-law took a look at him and said "What a cunning child!".
One of the most interesting things to me in language is that way that words in languages that are more or less imposed on people - English on the Scots, in this case - get re-purposed to suit local meanings.
See also "overstand" in Jamaican patois, which re-tools "understand" to have a richer meaning, one that is not completely captured by any standard English word (except perhaps "grok").
In computer programming, it usually means things like really obscure code that exploits some odd aspect of the programming language
I used to refer to that as "stunt programming". And, have been guilty of it, more times than I like to admit.
I blame C++, which offers more opportunities for general pointless wise-guy trickiness than another language I've bumped into. the difference between "smart" and "clever"
I always think of "smart" as being innate intelligence, while "clever" is more about what you do with it. In particular, clever seems more about finding creative solutions to problems.
So, a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart, but might not be able to figure out how to change a tire without a user's manual. Smart, but not clever.
The exemplar of clever is the crow.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Giving Away the Store”
If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I'm currently reading Christopher Newfield's book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I'll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from:
https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well - the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
Well worth the read.
"
These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn't have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.
"
educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does.
I wouldn't be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
We didn't have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It's a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it's not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan "Fix the damn roads!" campaign. But I sure don't see any politician who seem interested.
"
I'd be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon
The NAEP stats.
To the degree that the states Brooks calls out have made good progress in their educational outcomes, I applaud them. No snark. Well done, I hope they continue. In general they've advanced from pretty bad to somewhere between not-so-bad and not bad at all, which is actually a big jump, and worth celebrating.
Good job. Keep it up.
If you look at the NAEP stuff you'll see that educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn't do very well, Utah does. IMO it's more about the culture and history of the place, and what resources they bring to the table. Money, yes, but also an investment in the future mindset.
At the risk of coming off like a coastal elitist snob, I note that my adopted home state of Massachusetts does quite well. We aren't smarter than people in other states, we just have a long history of valuing education. A lot of the folks who settled the area were literate people, unusually so for their time. They valued education, and so they created pretty good schools. That culture persisted, and thus we do well on the NAEP stuff.
I'm glad to see that some states that historically have lagged in that area are taking steps to improve. Well done, carry on.
As an aside, I'll also say that Brooks annoys me. Perennially. I think he's sincere and I appreciate what I see as a real lack of cynicism. He seems to honestly be trying to make best sense of the world and his own life.
But I also think he's remarkably clueless. The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with "ordinary people" just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
I mean, he is genuinely a lifelong fan of the Mets, so by all means wear the hat. And if that helps break the ice, go for it. But I just don't think he's able to see outside of his white-shoe bubble.
He's just not a guy I think I need moral direction from. And that seems to be his primary way of framing his thoughts.
I hope Mr. Brooks will forgive me if I misjudge him here.
And that's enough stream of consciousness from me for one night.
"
Here's a link about how things played out in Mississippi
https://www.the74million.org/article/after-steering-mississippis-unlikely-learning-miracle-carey-wright-steps-down/
"
With Brooks, you have to take care with any evidence he offers. Yes, there is a Southern surge, but the states lauded (specifically Mississippi and Alabama) have historically been on the bottom of any ranking, so I suspect that them moving up is partly statistical. The data is from the NEAP, which only checks students in the 4th, 8th and 12th grade and the bulk of the surge comes from a leap in 4th grade, important to be sure, but it also corresponds with increased federal mandates on testing from No Child left behind in 2002 under Bush and the revised act signed by Obama. Mississippi didn't even have any state level assessments until it joined the PARCC for one year and then opted out.
The NEAP uses a weighted average of subgroups and gives only 4 classifications, Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Below Basic. Now, it's a good thing that more students from Below Basic are lifted up. However, there is both a ceiling effect. Again, I don't think that this means the Southern Surge is all bullshit, but it's not like Mississippi and Alabama are becoming powerhouses, it is that they are becoming more like other states.
The last thing is that the Southern Surge can be partially attributed to the pandemic. Every place had massive drops because of the pandemic. I'm not surprised that states with less developed educational infrastructure (like Mississippi and Alabama) could get up more quickly. The Southern Surge is attributable to Mississippi and Alabama moving up in the rankings, but doesn't really talk about how and why other states dropped to make that happen.
I don't think that the Southern Surge is all hype, I've been reading a lot about the 'Science of Reading' approach, which replaces the Balanced Literacy approach and seems to have made a big difference in these cases. But I suspect that Southern states have had an advantage in shifting to a new system because the teachers in the old system were often under-trained or left to their own devices, so it has been easier to introduce it.
"
What you say about the reason for the class based segregation makes plenty of sense, russell. I must say, I was very surprised by this:
Research by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli has demonstrated that red states are now much more active than blue states in adopting new education reform ideas. As a result, red states are leaping out ahead when it comes to student performance. The biggest education story of the last few years has been the so-called Southern surge, the significant rise in test scores in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.
I'd be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon - I had certainly never heard about it, but that's not particularly surprising I suppose.
"
class in America.
Yes, once upon a time there was a greater mix of higher-educated white collar professionals and non-college-grad working people in neighborhoods, schools, and social organizations.
It was like that when I was a kid. Doctors, lawyers, business executives lived in the same neighborhoods as cops, plumbers, local mom-n-pop business owners. Their kids went to the same schools, familes went to the same churches, etc. The doctors and lawyers might live in nicer houses, but still in the same town and general area. So, a while back, but not that far. In living memory, mine at least.
What's different? Among other things, higher-educated white collar professionals make a sh*t-ton more money relative to their non-college-grad working class than they did back then.
This is from 2015 and EPI are a bunch of commies, of course, but it gets the idea across.
Higher-educated white collar professionals used to pay more in taxes. Non-college-educated working people used to be unionized a lot more than they are now.
I don't mean to be reductionist about it, but the increased income gap goes a long way to explaining the class-based segregation Brooks talks about. IMO.
Maybe instead of waxing nostalgic about the loss of our common values and social bonds, we could tax wealthy people a little more and support organized labor.
Sometimes things actually are as simple as that.
As far as the summit goes, it's just another episode in the Donald and Vlad show as far as I can tell. Trump clearly admires Putin, he adores bullies, autocrats, and "tough guys", and Putin checks all of those boxes. He's a Putin wanna-be, and if there is a more despicable role model on the face of the planet than Vladimir Putin, I'm at a loss as to who that might be.
I have no idea how things are going to play out in Ukraine, Canada and the EU will likely have something to say about it all, and Ukraine by god most certainly will. But it's pretty clear to me that Trump is not going to do anything of significance to hinder Putin's desire to annex eastern Ukraine for now, after which he will likely rebuild a bit and return for the rest of the meal.
Trump somehow combines the venality and corruption of Nixon with a breathtaking ignorance and incompetence all his own. He is a deeply stupid man. It's remarkable.
"
OT, so a bit of a pivot back to class, but in this case class in America. David Brooks, on America's New Segregation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/opinion/trump-democrats-resistance-reform.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek8.T4vb.EoYRJkuNSb_8&smid=url-share
"
TACO - Trump Always Conciliates Oligarchs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/16/russia-jubilant-putin-alaska-summit-trump-ukraine
'Cos flattery gets you everywhere with Orange Chicken.
"
wj, I think you underestimate the effect on the Russian people of seeing Putin treated like an honoured guest in America. However, neither Ubu nor Witkoff nor any of their stooges have enough knowledge about internal Russian politics to understand that. Not to mention there is symbolic value in keeping tyrants and aggressors as isolated as possible, out of the G7 etc. But of course, with Ubu as POTUS, expecting any such idea to have currency is hopeless. I like TonyP's Make America Decent Again, but can't see it happening anytime soon. I dread the Zelensky meeting on Monday, and I can't imagine how he must feel.
"
Comrade Krasnov met with his handler and got updated instructions.
"
It's pretty bad. Trump has gone from "stop fighting or else" to "carry on, we'll have some peace talks".
Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.
"
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
I read some griping about Putin being "honored" by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.
"
Utterly enraging, and completely unsurprising.
"
Putin left Trump virtually speechless....given Trump's gonoerrhea mouth, quite a feat if you ask me. I wonder if the KGB hacked the Epstein files.
That Ukrainians will continue to die trying to deal with these monsters is absolutely enraging.
"
Re TonyP's comment, and a general thought about Alaskan resources... Those would be oil, natural gas, and coal for the most part. Russia already has lots of those.
"
Spent some time off and on this week adding a first cut illumination correction to the toy software for processing images of documents.
Original snapshot taken with a handheld iPad here.
Result of correcting various geometry impairments -- curled pages, perspective, orientation -- here.
First cut at doing some illumination correction here. The approach I've taken seems to do well at correcting problems caused purely by the light source being off to the side (darker sections where page curl has the surface normal vector pointing away from the light, brighter where the normal vector is pointing towards the light). The shadow in the lower right corner is from the iPad and will require a different approach to identify and correct. Or more likely, when I get closer to production I'll arrange things so the camera doesn't cast shadows.
"
Yesterday I made this comment on Charlie Pierce's blog at Esquire, and I stand by it:
The MAGAts who run Congress probably think that He, Trump owns Alaska's (and Ukraine's) resources and is therefore entitled to trade them to his KGB handler in exchange for a Noble* Prize. The rest of us need to do something about that, and I propose this: demand a commitment to deMAGAfication from any candidate for office who seeks our support. DeMAGAfication of government agencies, deMAGAfication of the courts, and deMAGAfication of "deals" made by the MAGAt-in-Chief. Of course a decent nation honors its commitments -- even those made under the previous regime -- but we can worry about that AFTER we Make America Decent Again.
--TP
*sic; look it up
On “A New Gilded Age”
Side note on "smart" and "posh": Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him "posh", but really in today's world it's hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on "normal usage" in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!
"
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn't required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
"
wj: to make your strategy work properly it requires generating an actual random choice.
PRO TIP: #2 pencils used for multiple-choice have 6 sides: using a pen to impress 'dots' in the wood, 1 dot, 2 dots, etc for the sides. Need a random number? Roll the pencil. Fast and easy.
Computer tests mess that up, dammit.
"
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I'll take the 5th, thank you.
"
my perception of American English has both "crafty" and "cunning" as something that is intentionally deceptive
When my step-son was born, my wife's Scottish then mother-in-law took a look at him and said "What a cunning child!".
One of the most interesting things to me in language is that way that words in languages that are more or less imposed on people - English on the Scots, in this case - get re-purposed to suit local meanings.
See also "overstand" in Jamaican patois, which re-tools "understand" to have a richer meaning, one that is not completely captured by any standard English word (except perhaps "grok").
"
In computer programming, it usually means things like really obscure code that exploits some odd aspect of the programming language
I used to refer to that as "stunt programming". And, have been guilty of it, more times than I like to admit.
I blame C++, which offers more opportunities for general pointless wise-guy trickiness than another language I've bumped into.
the difference between "smart" and "clever"
I always think of "smart" as being innate intelligence, while "clever" is more about what you do with it. In particular, clever seems more about finding creative solutions to problems.
So, a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart, but might not be able to figure out how to change a tire without a user's manual. Smart, but not clever.
The exemplar of clever is the crow.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.