Word: potterer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...devoted admirer of any particularly good or successful book, especially in the field of humor, awaits with apprehension the arrival of a sequel. Partisans of Stephen Potter's "Gamesmanship," first published two or three years ago, have been on edge for some time now with the knowledge that a sequel was (inevitably) forthcoming. And there was some justification for their worries. "Gamesmanship" was an excellent book, but it was based on a very simple principle of humor, namely, that very ordinary ideas can be made excruciatingly funny if dressed up in formal categories and labeled with big names. There...
...Smith Club, plaintiff, won the second quarter-final argument of the Ames Competition last night in the Langdell Court Room. Phillip C. Potter and Arthur V. Savage represented the winners, while Edward L. Johnson and Richard B. Miller pled for the defense, representing the Coke Club. All men are in the second year of the Law School...
...some cases, says Potter, the really adroit patient can put his doctor at a disadvantage right at the start by "throwing doubt on the very term doctor." For example, "I am, I suppose, right in calling you Doctor" works wonders...
...this conflict, of course, the doctor always has the advantage of his specialized knowledge. "An intensely annoying ploy [gambit] often used by doctors," writes Potter, "is to treat Patient not only as if he knew nothing about medicine, but as if he were as ignorant of all anatomical knowledge as a child of four. Doctor will start, for instance, speaking very slowly, with 'you see, the heart is a sort of pump,' and will then imitate the action of a pump, unrecognizably, with his hands. Or he will refer to the blood corpuscles as 'the white fellows...
...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 to come to him for his 'marvelous cures...