A shrewdness of apes At first glance, its hard to believe that this collective noun was in use a full 500 years ago. Nowadays, shrewdness means intelligence and, more precisely, astuteness. And though recent studies into the behaviour and brains of apes have revealed startling cognitive abilities, these findings would have shocked medieval naturalists. Instead, our forefathers noted in apes a kind of playful mischievousness, and in their day shrewdness meant wickedness. In a wonderful stroke of luck, the evolution of our language has mirrored the evolution of our scientific understanding, so that a term that made perfect sense in 1486 also makes perfect sense to us.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 15:24:37 +0000
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