Are you brilliant, clever, wise or intelligent?

Today’s English
April 14th, 2017

Cleverness:
If you apply your sudden creative idea in a situation especially to achieve your desired end, you are clever. A jackal that asks a crow to sing a song so that the vadai will fall down from its mouth is clever whether it is successful or not.  The crow that keeps the vadai under its claws and sings a song is cleverer than the jackal, isn’t it? 

Brilliance:
Brilliance refers to expressing your creative idea sharply, quickly, spontaneously to solve a problem or answer a difficult question. “Clever” in some applications includes the meaning - cunning use of idea to cheat others or to create a problem but “brilliant” doesn’t imply any such cunning nature and it tries to solve a problem rather than creating it.  Brilliance is as innocent as a child whereas cleverness is as cunning as politicians.

Intelligence:
Intelligence, cleverness and brilliance all represent mental abilities or capacities  to respond to a situation.  But the first one is manifestation of still higher mental capacity than the other two.  Intelligence means your capacity to “learning, analysing, reasoning  a logical way and understanding.”  It develops or can be developed year by year by study.  It’s your treasure house of mental abilities and knowledge accumulated through years, not a timely wit or creative idea in the case of brilliance and cleverness. It can be measured by a test – I.Q (intelligence quotient).  A student who is good at learning and understanding is an intelligent student who may not be brilliant or clever with creative ideas.

Wisdom:
You are wise if you have enough knowledge and experience to make sensible decisions, useful suggestions or solutions. You cannot say that a child or student is wise since he or she is only at the growing and learning stage.  So it is generally used with experienced, aged people or sages.

Genius:
An unusual, exceptional or extraordinary intelligence, skill and artistic ability is called genius. Great poets, writers, scientists and artists have it. So don’t use it to refer to ordinary people who may have brilliance, cleverness, intelligence or even wisdom. Shakespeare is a genius because he has this unusual, exceptional and extraordinary intelligence in understanding human life and the spontaneity to express it in writing.

(Wife : You are a genius.

Husband: Something is wrong. Do you want a new sari?

Wife: See… you are intelligent. You quickly understand everything.

Husband: Enough of your ice! But don’t go for silk sari. You look smart in cotton saris and it’s good for summer too.

Wife: See…you are clever and wise. You want to save money and cheat me and at the same time gives me a good choice. But I want only silk sari, that too in 10000 rupees. It’s just for yours. You know, your sister’s wedding is in couple of months… Please say O.K. dear…

Husband: You are really brilliant.)