Word: third
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This article is designed to explain how to achieve the third answer to this perplexing problem by the use of the vague generality, the artful equivocation and the overpowering assumption...
There is a third method of dealing with examination questions--that is by the use of the overpowering assumption, an assumption so cosmic that it is sometimes accepted. For example, we wrote that it was pretty obvious that the vague generality was the key device in any discussion of examination writing. Why is it obvious? As a matter of fact it isn't obvious at all, but just an arbitrary point from which to start. That is an example of an unwarranted assumption...
...third suggestion, the Overpowering Assumption, I think, is best. But not for the reasons he suggests--that the assumption is so cosmic that it might be accepted. It is rarely "accepted;" we aren't here to accept or reject, we're here to be amused. The more dazzling, personal, unorthodox, paradoxic your assumptions (paradoxes are not equivocations), the more interesting an essay it is likely to be. (If you have a chance to confer with the assistant in advance, of course--and we all like to be called "assistants," not "graders" --you may be able to ferret...
...right, of course, about the third alternative, and a very sensible one it is--working out some system of fooling the grader, although I think I should prefer the word "impressing." We admit to being impressionable, but not to being hyper-credulous simps. His first two tactics for system beating, his Vague Gerneralities and Artful Equivocations, seem to presume the latter, and are only going to convince Crimson-reading graders (there are a few and we tell our friends) that the time has come to tighten the screws just a bit more...
Victims of the collapse included Ronald Yoder, 37, who lost his job as a crane operator when Fruehauf shuttered its Fort Wayne, Ind., trailer plant in 1987. Yoder, who is married with a 17-month-old son, now earns about a third less than the $11.47 hourly wage he was paid at Fruehauf and receives no health insurance from his present employer. Says he: "Sure, I got another job, but I can't save a dime. We wanted to have another baby, but we can't afford it. I didn't know what an LBO was until a couple...