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Gift, genius or graft?

In the news, the Economist carried a story (Bright Sparks, February 8, 2007) on how to bring up gifted children, citing the example of Hungarian Laszlo Polgar, who is known for turning all three of his daughters into world-beating chess masters.

Here, I want to talk about three words that appear in the story: gift, genius and graft.

Gift, by definition, is a natural ability, something innate, that one's born with. The Polgar sisters all have a gift for playing chess, or so it seems.

Genius is an exceptional gift - a very high level of intelligence, mental skill, or artistic ability, which only a few people have (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). Obviously to the rest of the world, all three Polgar sisters have a genius for playing chess.

Not so, according to father Polgar, whose favorite saying is "Geniuses are made, not born". Says the Economist: "Mr Polgar thought any child could be a prodigy given the right teaching, an early start and enough practice."

Enough practice? That means graft, which is British English for lots of hard work.

Indeed, the article goes on to point out:

"Some say the key to success is simply hard graft. Judit, the youngest of the Polgar sisters, was the most driven, and the most successful; Zsofia, the middle one, was regarded as the most talented, but she was the only one who did not achieve the status of grand master. 'Everything came easiest to her,' said her older sister. 'But she was lazy.'"