Word: ploy
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Friends and admirers of British Humorist Stephen Potter, who died in London last week at 69, will recognize Lifeman's rejoinder as the Canterbury Block, a devastating all-purpose ploy. "Yes, but not in the South," as Potter went on to explain in Some Notes on Lifemanship, is a phrase that "with slight adjustments, will do for any argument about any place, if not about any person. It is an impossible comment to answer." Lifemanship can take many other directions. One gifted practitioner, cited by Potter in the same volume, dedicated his book "TO PHYLLIS, in the hope that...
...adopting its hard line, the Administration lent credence to those who charge that Haynsworth is the unhappy end result of Nixon's "Southern strategy," a political ploy the President has repeatedly denied. According to this theory, Nixon met with South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond and other Southern leaders in Atlanta in May of last year. The Southerners promised Nixon two things. First, they would protect Southern delegates for Nixon in the convention against the poaching of California's Governor Ronald Reagan. Second, they would do their best to hold the line in the general election against...
Whether or not Pompidou's ploy works, it was plain that the unequal distribution of wealth in France-and elsewhere-was one of the root causes of the current unrest. Said Political Commentator Jean Ferniot: "The war has moved from the political to the social battlefield." And, as in beleaguered Britain, nobody can be sure where the next skirmish might break...
...would believe that when Movie Stars Jason Briar and Monica Ploy went on their publicity-stunt retreat in an abandoned abbey on the California coast they were nearly eaten by a scaly sea monster? Gossip Columnist Harriet Troom would, but then she actually was eaten by the monster when she sought out Jason and Monica for an exclusive. And who would believe that? Nobody, but the whole satirical fantasia on the Burton-Taylor legend in Harvey Jacobs' story In Seclusion is so funny that it doesn't matter...
...code. Matusow advises pasting stamps on sideways so that the scanner cannot read the magnetized strips that differentiate between values of stamps. In persuading telephone operators to handle calls personally, he suggests saying: "I'm sorry, operator, but I'm blind and do need your assistance." That ploy "is bound to make her feel extremely guilty, and will make it easier for the next caller who wants her to make the connection...