When I was a boy I wanted to know everything and I was upset that I had missed living through the Industrial Revolution, which sounded like quite an exciting time. I resolved to become a polymath. It's difficult to say what sparks off a quest for knowledge. In my case it was probably one of the 'cut-away' illustrations that appeared in the popular literature of my youth and a history of the world encyclopaedia I got for my birthday. Technically, they are 'breakaway' drawings as many of them were realised by a single hole in the outside of the object. I didn't decide to become a pedant: that came naturally.
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