“Eh, nanya dong… Apa bedanya smart, intelligent, sama clever?” pertanyaan kritis Lucky Winara mengusik obrolan gue, Raymond si pacar, Ivan, dan Anyi yang sedari tadi berisi gosip mengenai Dies Natalis Pendidikan Psikologi ke-55. Topik yang Lucky ajukan nampak terlalu menarik untuk terlebih dahulu dipertimbangkan perlu-dibahas-atau-tidak sehingga kami pun tanpa ba-bi-bu segera mendiskusikannya. Ivan, as usual, membutuhkan kertas dan alat tulis untuk corat-coret sambil brainstorming.

Sementara Ivan menulis “smart intelligent clever” di kertas, Anyi mengusulkan beberapa term lagi yaitu prodigy, genius, talented, dan gifted. Nggak mau kalah, Ivan lalu mengusulkan witty sebagai salah satu term yang juga harus didiskusikan.

Diskusi berjalan seru dan panjang, seiring dengan coretan di kertas yang semakin penuh dengan tulisan yang berisi output brainstorming, aspek-aspek yang mempengaruhi definisi istilah-istilah di atas. Sangat menarik. Somehow, gue merasakan atmosfer kampus yang jarang sekali gue temui. Suasana santai, nongkrong-nongkrong sampai entah jam berapa, dan berdiskusi mengenai apa saja (jadi teringat sejarah akademos F.Psi UI).

Sayangnya gue nggak bisa ikut diskusi sampai selesai karena harus pergi ke Hypermart sama pacar, buying some stuffs sebelum tempat tersebut tutup. Tapi karena gue penasaran, akhirnya gue manfaatkanlah search engine-nya google yang praktis ini. Dan inilah sedikit hasil dari penemuan gue:

• Prodigy:
  • an unusually gifted and intelligent (young) person; someone whose talents excite wonder and admiration
  • an impressive or wonderful example of a particular quality (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
  • a person with exceptionally great talent usually discovered at an early age (www.brottmusic.com/educationmain/Glossary)
    
• Genius:
  • someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality
  • brilliance: unusual mental ability
  • exceptional creative ability
  • flair: a natural talent (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
• Talented:
  • endowed with talent or talents; “a gifted writer”
  • talent: endowment – natural abilities or qualities, a person who possesses an unusual innate ability in some field or activity (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
• Clever:
  • adroit: skillful (or showing skill) in adapting means to ends
  • apt: mentally quick and resourceful
  • showing inventiveness and skill (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
    
• Intelligent:
  • having the capacity for thought and reason especially to a high degree
  • possessing sound knowledge
  • endowed with the capacity to reason (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
    
  • able to understand and to reason well (www.business-words.com/dictionary/l.html)
  • having sharp mental abilities (encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861597782/clever.html)
• Smart:
  • showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness
  • bright: characterized by quickness and ease in learning
  • capable of independent and apparently intelligent action (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
• Gifted:
  • talented: endowed with talent or talents; “a gifted writer” (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
  • children are those considered by educational system to have significantly higher than normal levels of one or more forms of intelligence (dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/gifted)
• Witty:
  • combining clever conception and facetious expression (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

Jadi, apa perbedaan smart, intelligent, dan clever?

Kita bahas di tulisan selanjutnya