Polymath is one of those words more likely to show up on the SAT than in everyday conversation. But the reason we don’t use the word much these days has less to do with vocabulary than it has to do with practicality: there aren’t a lot of polymaths around anymore.

In case you don’t have your pocket dictionary handy, a polymath is a person with a wide range of knowledge or learning. Think people like Leonardo da Vinci (artist and helicopter designer), Benjamin Franklin (founding father, inventor, and all-around lady-killer), Paul Robeson (scholar, athlete, actor, and civil rights activist), and even Steve Jobs (engineer, businessman extraordinaire, and marketing mastermind).

Still, while we admire the select “geniuses” that can do it all, we tend to disparage the regular folk that attempt to spread their knowledge around a little. If they are so foolish as to dabble instead of devoting themselves to a single calling, those unfortunates sometimes earn the time-dishonored label of “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

But why? What’s so wrong with trying to learn new things? Here’s what Maya Angelou — herself a polymath (poet, journalist, dancer) — has to say about the saying:

“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Angelou said to the Smithsonian. ”I think you can be a jack-of-all-trades and a mistress-of-all-trades. If you study it, and you put reasonable intelligence and reasonable energy, reasonable electricity to it, you can do that. You may not become Max Roach on the drums. But you can learn the drums.”

What’s more, in the digital age, learning has really never been easier — and not just for the “geniuses” that walk among us. Polymath status is accessible to just about anyone with a modem, a library card, and the desire to learn.

Information is everywhere, and it’s often free. iTunesU gives your everyday-Joe an opportunity to get a free, virtual Ivy-league education from his couch. Khan Academy teaches people everything from beginning algebra to cosmology. Sign into Google’s Code University to learn programming languages in the moments snatched during lunch breaks or while the baby’s napping. My company iFixit teaches people how to repair their electronics — no prior experience necessary. And, most recently, MIT and Harvard teamed up to launch edX, a “planet-scale, technology-enabled” online education platform that offers college courses for free. And these types of free online learning institutions are more the rule than the exception these days.

So, why aren’t there more of us polymaths?