What for you would qualify someone as a legitimate intellectual as opposed to a pseudo-intellectual? How fluent in latin would a person have to be? How many quotes memorised? How refined their tastes?

Are you okay?

personally i would only consider people who persue knowledge for the purpose of their own learning, rather than some one who goes about conversations with the intention to "educate" people. if that makes sense.

I myself am an intellectual. 'How so?' the plebeian masses here might ask, well I will grace you with that answer. You see, being connected to this sophisticated life support system (Which would go above most of your heads should I try and explain it to your....delicate minds.) allows my brain to scan a highly sophisticated network of journals, encyclopedias and other things. Take for example how Mammals have genitalia where their noses used to be before they devolved. Wait, that's not right....who the hell's been hacking into my software and editing my data stores again?

Someone who actively pursues knowledge and probably over many disciplines whether in free time or vocationally.

I'd rather one not ever refer to themselves as an intellectual, regardless of how much of an intellectual they may be. It makes them look silly. And therefore I'd rather not label anyone as an intellectual, because that's what they want!

I'd say you would have to have at least one book published on some non-fiction topic (and for it to be reasonably popular), maybe?

That would more be being an academic wouldn't it? Not sure of dictionary definitions, but in my mind an intellectual is a consumer of knowledge whereas an academic is a creator/investigator of knowledge.

Idk what a "pseudo-intellectual" is or if that exists.

Trying to come up with a good definition on intellectual...

Maybe "someone who is interested in things beyond the immediate level".

If you're interested in something, that's an interest. But if you like to anolyze and theorize about it, if you're interested in just not the what but also the how and why, that's intellectual traits.

If you have a big ego and like to lecture people on how dumb they are, you are an intellectual.

A piece of paper and a mountain of debt.....

Pseudo intellectual would in my book be someone who speedreads wikipedia articles and then imitates an expert. Although I do agree with the sentiment that in general an intellectual wouldn't care about looking like an intellectual.

I guess it's just my impression. I think you'd have to be producing written work, at least newspaper columns or something. Otherwise it's a bit empty.

Perhaps it's not to do with how much you know, but how well you understand the things that you do know (quality over quantity)?

And perhaps it's about taking a more "classicist" view of things than a romantic, i.e. anolysis, theorizing, seeing connections/details of elements etc.

I guess for me it's someone who can formulate their own opinions rather than buying wholesale into the "correct" opinions of their chosen philosophy or political persuasion.

Hacking complete! Let's see here, RobCo designs and schematics.. Boring. How about we upload the complete Grognak the Barbarian issues. And replace that useless junk. Hmm, what do we have here. Nah more boring. Let's just change this, and that. Ohh, Perhaps rewrite some history. Yeah.

But on topic, I'd say anyone smart enough to not use words like Yolo, or hash-tag. Qualify as an intellectual to me.