(Bruce Janson) writes:

In article ,
John Schoenfeld wrote:
..
... ellastic. ...
..
... ellastic ...
..

I have often wondered why idiosyncratic misspelling
so often coincides with crackpotism. Anyone know?
(It is certainly a helpful shibboleth.)

For one thing, crackpots typically are ill-educated to un-educated ---
which they often view as giving them an "advantage," since to their minds
it means they are not "hidebound" or "constrained" by "conventional thinking."

Regardless of their level of formal education, crackpots generally grossly
over-estimate their own mental competence, typically considering themselves
to be "brilliant" or even "geniuses," when in reality they are of sub-normal
intelligence, and are often incapable of forming even a coherent sentence,
let alone a coherent thought.

It is an interesting phenomenon that the incompetent generally
over-estimate their own abilities, while the highly skilled generally
under-estimate them. See "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties
in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,"
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html.


-- Gordon D. Pusch

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