social media and (not scholarship but) graffiti?

There was some exciting discussion developing here the other day about such topics as how smart it is and the smarts that are required to participate on the blogs and face books. Or as the great elitist Cicero put it:

Nomina stultorum in parietibus [paginisque librorum faciei et commentis blogum] semper videmus [et in podcastibus audimus].

*Crib sheet with reference to grammar in dusty print edition. nomina — neuter plural accusative of third declension noun: nomen, nominis. stultorum — masculine plural genitive of second declension noun: stultus, stulti. in — preposition + object in ablative. parietibus — masculine plural ablative of third declension noun: paries, parietis. paginis — feminine plural ablative of first declension noun: pagina, paginae. que — enclitic conjunction. librorum — masculine plural genitive of second declension noun: liber, libri. faciei — feminine singular genitive of fifth declension noun: facies, faciei. et – conjunction. commentis — neuter plural ablative of first and second declension adjective as substantive: commentus, -a, -um (n.b. primary meaning). blogum — masculine plural genitive of third declension noun: blog, blogis. semper – adverb. videmus — first person plural present active indicative of second conjugation verb: video, videre, vidi, visum. podcastibus – neuter plural ablative of fourth declension noun: podcastu, podcastus. audimus — first person plural present active indicative of the fourth conjugation verb: audio, audire, audivi, auditum.

*Or for all practical purposes you could just copy and paste into an online translator (sorry, you’ve got to click on image for readable size):

I know. Nothing but apples and oranges, if that.

Jesting aside, I do wonder:  is there a tendency to assume too quickly that those who have disaffiliated are less smart, well read, etc., even among the Mormon intellectual crowd (or insert whatever descriptor you prefer) that is otherwise generally careful not to assume that those who have disaffiliated are more sinful? And if there is such a tendency even, perhaps especially, among the Mormon intellectual crowd, why is the assumption made? Is it simply the inverse of the trope that Mormon intellectuals are bankrupt? Can the assumption be unmade? Should it? Or is it essential, at least rhetorically?

Oh, and if anyone thinks of an actual way to translate ‘blog’ and ‘podcast’ into Latin, I would enjoy seeing the fool’s name in a comment.