TENDERFOOT HOTHOUSE MOUSE
Just the other night I watched Charles Van Doren
cheat on that game show in 1956. It was a pretty
good job, but since I'd already known beforehand,
he couldn't fool me. It was only a little computer
screen image but it seemed real enough from me.
That other guy, the poor sucker who lost, he was
from the Bronx or Queens or something, and I was
more on his side but probably because I already
knew. Except I didn't 'know' what I knew; it was
all hear-say to me. That's a cool word, hearsay,
and it describes precisely what it is! It's close
enough to heresy for kids to make the mistake.
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The whole episode was/is kind of famous, but
of no consequence at all. Now there again is one
crazy important word: 'consequence.' It's made from
the Latin, and means 'with sequence'. So when I
say 'no consequence at all' I guess it's like saying
'out of line'? Everything is, sort of. So I guess it
makes the point : 'tenderfoot hothouse mouse'
couldn't do it any better.
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