There are several ways to answer this question: some smart, some don't is, first and foremost, a cliche made up by Joshua Daniels. During his time at college, Josh was obsessed with cliches, and their ability to represent inherent truths about our lives. During an attempt to utilize foreign language cliches to make himself look super intelligent, Josh developed his own.

It's a cliche, a puzzle and a semantic paradox.

As any good cliche, there are multiple layers to this saying. For example, you can take the word smart to literally mean intelligent. As in "some people are intelligent, some are not". Of course, the grammar of the actual phrase would be terrible in this case, leading to a humorously ironic statement made by what would appear to be an idiot (some don't).

However, if the word smart is taken to mean something painful as in "that smarts!" then the meaning suddenly becomes "some (things) smart, while others don't". Obviously this is true, if not vague. When combined with the other meaning of the phrase, though, the cliche suddenly develops a depth and subtelty that is difficult to ignore. Ultimately, very few will appreciate all the layers and applications of this saying (some smart). Unfortunately, we aren't among those select few.

Proverbs 13:20 is, "Walk with wise men, and thou shalt be wise; But the companion of fools shall smart for it," (ASV) proving that the cliche has deep, historic roots.

The goal of somesmart.com is a place for myself, the aforementioned Josh, Matt Kelly, and others (who will be added as they express interest), to maintain the many interesting, intelligent, funny thoughts and ideas we have in a single, organized, accessible way. We hope to keep this place updated as frequently as possible, and from a variety of sources. The site is powered by PmWiki, and ultimately will be much more robust than it currently is. If you have any questions, please forward them to info [at] somesmart [dot] com