Streetwise, street smart

Reader question: Could you explain “streetwise” in this sentence – Yu Zecheng is a streetwise Communist agent planted in a Kuomintang secret spy organization.

My comments: People who are streetwise or street smart know how to deal with situations in the “street”, or the real world.

“Street smarts”, usually plural, is the noun referring to such knowledge and know-how gained from actually surviving on the street instead of the classroom.

In other words, people who are streetwise have a lot of practical knowledge to enable them to survive in tough real-life situations. They are not bookworms who may have done well in school but find it hard to cope with situations that ask for one’s instincts, common sense and perhaps sheer guts and fearlessness. For example, I recall a report a few years ago of a woman who had completed her postgraduate studies being sold by human traffickers to a poverty-stricken peasant, to be his wife. It was not done by force, not initially at any rate but instead she was just sweet-talked into believing stories from strangers. Now, the traffickers might not be able to read or write. If they have any cleverness, that cleverness (or cunning in this case) is what you may call street smarts. The woman in question could read or write, to say the least, but obviously she didn’t have the street smarts to prevent her from being duped by the said crooks and criminals.

Sad tale to tell but, well, you get the picture. Here are media examples of each – streetwise (adjective) and street smarts (noun):

1. Graduates need to be streetwise, not high IQ “A high IQ helps, but HR and talent managers ask us to select graduates that have common sense, are streetwise, and understand how to innovate and lead,” says Max Choi, Occupational Psychologist. “You are simply not going to assess these qualities with a traditional verbal or numerical test. That’s why we are developing a Scenarios test to assess their practical, real-world decision making”. Max is co-author of Scenarios – the first valid psychometric test of Managerial Judgement marketed by SHL Group plc. - Questpartnership.co.uk, October 9, 2007.

2. Paralyzed Former Cop Thwarts Robbery

When suspected drug dealers shot Dallas Police Detective David Rodriguez 14 years ago, leaving him paralyzed, they may have ended his law enforcement career — but he never lost his street smarts. “Once you are a cop those skills, those instincts that want to be involved to be in the middle never leave you,” said Rodriguez, who cultivated his skills pounding the pavement as an officer. So when Rodriguez, now a paraplegic, pulled his silver pickup truck up to a Dallas Jack-in-the-Box drive-through window Monday afternoon, the 60-year-old said he was at first frustrated with the slow service, but soon noticed the terrified look on an employee’s face. “She kept moving her eyes to the left. At that point I realized this is probably a robbery,” Rodriguez said. Inside, the alleged gunman — later identified by police as Royal Robinson, 34 — had reportedly flashed a handgun at employees and asked them to empty out the cash register. He stuffed about $174 into his pockets before fleeing, police say. Seeing the suspect running, Rodriguez pulled out of the drive-in line with his vehicle, which is specially outfitted to be driven by hand. His cop instincts instantly took over. He called 911 from his cell phone as he followed the gunman. When the robber realized someone was tailing him, he drew a handgun and pointed it at the retired officer. “He pointed it at me and he comes running towards me,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez threw his truck into reverse to block him; and Rodriguez says Robinson then took off and tried to carjack a man before fleeing into a nearby lot, where police found him cowering behind a trash bin. - ABC News, March 27, 2008.