Comments on: Fount of Wisdom

By: bad tim

bad tim — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:51:18 +0000

for me, wisdom is not something that emits from a source but is collected. it’s the result of knowledge and experience, so it comes from the mellowing of what we’ve taken in, not something we can simply gather up from its source.

so, i’ve always understood the term to be font of wisdom, as in basin.

By: Amazing Blair

Amazing Blair — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:21:53 +0000

Actually, Maeve, my dictionary* lists one definition of “font” as “[Poet.] a fountain or spring”, along with the expected meanings of bowl or basin for holding water. This backs up my usage.

I have always spoken the expression as “a font of wisdom” (with the short /ah/ sound of font), meaning that the person or thing was a source of wisdom, as a spring is the source of a river. It always seemed a sort of poetical usage to start with.

-Amazing Blair
_____
* Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, (c) 1970 by The World Publishing Company

By: Dee

Dee — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:02:14 +0000

Huh. I always thought the short form of “fountain” was spelled “font” and therefore that the expression was “font of wisdom” – but that “font” in that context meant “fountain,” not “basin.”

By: Brad K.

Brad K. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:38:48 +0000

I think of font and fount more prosaically. A font contains the water or inspiration or whatever resource you go to the font for.

A fount is filling with the water or inspiration or whatever. It often overflows; in displays the overflow is recirculated to make a dramatic display of just how much overabundance is celebrated there. Yes, I consider the splashing, bubbling fount, at least the man made fountains, to be spin control. Beyond the music and art in the artificially produced sprays and splashes, is the symbolism of conspicuous consumption.

If I consider wisdom to be a bowl that I could dip into or taste, that would be a font of wisdom. If wisdom were an ever-arriving stream that I might dibble and dabble in as I wish – that would be a fount of wisdom.

Or I might ponder the evidence of my senses (Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, Scout’s Progress, an sf novel). If acceleration is the rate of change of motion, perhaps wisdom is what we learn from what we have learned, the mathematical derivative of information.

By: Dwain Wilder

Dwain Wilder — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:05:53 +0000

“Font of wisdom” seems to me to make the same kind of sense as “type font,” meaning, cast at the same time.

Wisdom is not a matter of accumulation of knowledge, but of insight, often coming as a holisitic vision or mentation — cast all at once.