Florence King called these the "ignos" -- as in "ignorant." Her illustration was a bank manager or something like that (the book is across the room, I'm too lazy to get it) who, when Miss King said "I can see the handwriting on the wall" about some issue actually turned around and stared incomprehendingly at the wall.

I hate to admit it but there is a real lack of intellectual curiosity in the business world. I've been a part of that world my entire career, have had some success, and have dealt with a great many very successful, very smart people with degrees (usually in business) from impressive universities.

It is very rare that I meet anyone with any knowledge of, or interest in, history, literature, philosophy, or just about anything else in the humanities or social sciences. I once actually had a boss who stated with pride that he had never read a book he didn't have to read. I cringe even writing that.

I know that reinforces liberal stereotypes of people in the business world, but I've dealt with enough of them that I really do have a pretty good sample size from which to draw my conclusions. I hate it but its true.

When I was raking in a goodly sum with a side business as a freelance marketing writer, I found that my audience (engineers, VCs, and technical types) were hungry for just those sort of references. I often got front-page placement of an article because I'd built it on a literary foundation, such as A Tale of Two Cities, or Alice in Wonderland.

But I've also gotten my share of blank looks. In fact, at my present job, where my fellow employees are some of the smartest people I've ever known, I find myself explaning a literary reference or the meaning of a word at least once a week.

I cannot now recall where I recently saw a description of a woman inserting herself Yokoishly into a relationship and wrecking a marriage. So now the images and similes come from popular culture instead of the Bible. Equally colorful, but who will understand them in twenty years?

Here is an example of this kind of loss: 35 years ago Trains Magazine had an article on The Wonderful Trains of Thomas Wolfe. One passage that was quoted in that article is completely incomprehensible to anybody who has never ridden in a passenger car with no air conditioning and the windows open at speed on jointed rail. To understand it, you have to read it at 80 mph. In the 1930's, when the passage was written, everybody had done that. Now almost nobody has.