Word: ployed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Canny Harry Hopman, nonplaying captain of the Australian Davis Cup team, seemed to be giving U.S. Captain Frank Shields a splendid lesson in Gamesmanship,* Down Under style. As a full-time tennis writer for the Melbourne Herald, Hopman based his opening ploy on the U.S. warmup performances. His particular target: Vic Seixas, who, he said, had "foot-faulted a number of times" without being taken to task. U.S. Captain Shields showed himself no mean Gamesman in return by promptly retorting: "When Harry resorts to such tactics as this, I think it indicates only that we've got him worried...
...South. Experts of all kinds are the Lifeman's deadly enemies. One simple ploy (or gambit) against them is the Canterbury Block...
Another excellent conversational ploy is to pose an esoteric question and then rapidly answer it oneself (having, of course, looked up the answer beforehand), e.g., "I wonder what the expectation of life of, say, an advertising agent of thirty really is-at this moment of time, I mean." This, however, should be tried only by experienced Lifemen, as the gambit, like all gambits, has its answer or "counter-life," e.g., "I should have thought that question had lost validity in our contemporary context," or possibly, "I wondered how long it would be before somebody asked that question...
This is "an extremely difficult ploy to counter," but the tables can be turned by a patient who replies with some hauteur, "They appear rather steatorrhoeic...
Another useful ploy for the patient "consists of playing on Doctor's fear of seeming [to claim] medical qualifications which he does not in fact possess." Suppose, for example, the doctor suggests that some ailment may be psychological in origin. "Oh, Doctor," the patient may reply, "I had no idea that was one of your subjects. I've always wanted a good psychotherapist." Follow up the advantage promptly, urges Potter: "Refuse to take in the doctor's worried assurance that he is not a trained psychiatrist. Make it appear that you are going to tell your friends...