"Nobody wants a know-it-all smart-aleck. We're choosing a leader here. People prefer someone more like them, someone not too smart, a little ignorant perhaps, but someone likeable, with leadership qualities..."

A Malapropism There!

"I'm willing to bet $1,000 he can't tell the difference between tsunami and tiramisu," Belle said.

"Oh, come on," Woody sputtered and hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of chocolate mousse. "That's unfair, that's really unfair! That's too difficult. Besides, just how knowledgeable do you really need to be?"

Subversive Satire! Should the elderly move in with their children or into assisted living? When her friend Jane comes under fire for resisting living with her mother-in-law, Belle has to tackle yet another difficult issue with no easy solutions. Find out how in: The Rotating Mother-in-Law!

"Okay, okay," Chrissy interjected. "That was too difficult. To be fair, you should choose stuff more likely to be in his consciousness. He's been talking about trade ... and he has a dog. So how about something like terrier and tariff? And since that's an easier pair, I'll bet only $100 that he'll confuse terrier and tariff."

Belle poked at the little chocolate cup on her plate. Her mousse was long gone. "Wouldn't terrine go better with terrier?"

"Terrine is out," Chrissy said firmly. "Too difficult."

"Well, saté and sauté, then," Belle said brightly.

"Nope. You want something the average person would know, something—"

"You've got food on the brain," Woody said to Belle. "You think book-learning is important, but it really isn't. What counts is leadership. Besides there are some very successful dropouts—"

"Something slightly au-courant, but still part of the mainstream," Chrissy continued, "like ... like latte and latrine."

"Latte and latrine is good," Belle said. "I'll go along with latte and latrine. Wait! On second thought, latte and laetrile may be better—seeing that laetrile has some connection to Mexico..."

More opinions from Mrs. G's table: • "With my plan, everyone who pays taxes gets a tax cut," the candidate intoned plaintively from the television screen.   "We've got a reverse Robin Hood on our hands," Belle declared. She speared a chunky piece of lobster tail with her fork and held it up for emphasis... • "How can one throw one's weight around if one doesn't have any?" Belle asked.

"No!" Chrissy said.

"Wait! I've got it. Haplosis and halitosis! Now, halitosis is quite common. You can't say halitosis is not common."

"But haplosis isn't," Chrissy said.

"And I suppose you'd say etiology and etimology are out of the question. And ditto for caconym and cacodyl? Hey, I can come up with hundreds of these!"

"What is haplosis?" Woody asked.

"Have you never heard of hapless?" Belle said.

"Yeees..."

"Well, there you have it. Haplosis means of or pertaining to the state of being hapless!"

Woody looked uncertain but kept on eating. Chrissy, her face perfectly straight, was cutting her chocolate basket into bite-size pieces. Mrs. G was at the counter by the ovens checking the Madeleine cookies. Belle hoped she hadn't heard that last remark.

Belle and her older sister, Chrissy, ate at their mother's home as often as they could and never missed her Friday dinners. Their mother, Catherine Valère Ghent, known affectionately as Mrs. G to all who loved and admired her, was a five-star Cordon Bleu cook of rare talent. She often included Woody, a distant cousin and successful downtown lawyer, at her dinners and did not approve of tricks played on him.

Mrs. G was frowning now as she unmolded the Madeleines. She normally served them on the mousse in the chocolate baskets, but she was running late today and the mousse was mostly gone. So she just piled them onto a serving tray and brought them to the table.

Belle followed the tray with her eyes. "Anyway, I guess I'll go along with latte and latrine, but I must point out to you that you don't have latrines when you are lucky enough to get the posh type of military service." She stretched her neck toward the tray, trying to inhale. "Now, how do we test our hypothesis?"

"I'd feel a lot less perturbed by your unkind remarks if either of you had managed to get elected to something—anything—yourselves," Mrs. G said. She held the tray under Belle's nose and swiftly moved it away before Belle could take one.

"We ran for stuff at school, but that was many years ago," Chrissy explained to Woody.

"It's just that nobody would vote for us," Belle added, watching the tray.

"Nobody wants a know-it-all smart-aleck," Woody said. "We're choosing a leader here. People prefer someone more like them, someone not too smart, a little ignorant perhaps, but someone likeable, with leadership qualities—"

"Hey, I understand perfectly," Belle said. "A little mangled syntax here, a Malapropism there! Throw in a bad-boy grin—why, soon we're talking real leadership material." She turned to Chrissy. "Wait! I just had an epiphany! No wonder I lost that election. It was my good-girl grin! I've got to lose that good-girl grin."

"Your grin is pretty frightening as it is," Woody said. "Try losing the multi-syllable words."

"The reason you did not win is because you were too lazy to campaign." Mrs. G kept the tray out of Belle's reach. "Big talk, no do."

"It's pretty unfair to require people to be fault-free before they can criticize a candidate," Belle protested. "It's as illogical as saying that only worthwhile people should be allowed to vote."

"Which is clearly wrong," put in Chrissy. "In fact, the more worthless you are, the more vigorously I would fight to defend your right to vote."

"Another Madeleine for you, Woody dear?" Mrs. G asked sweetly.

Belle decided to ignore the tray. " Here's my plan. We finagle a couple of press credentials from the West Weekly, talk our way into a press conference, carefully steer the questioning—"

"Time for coffee," Mrs. G interrupted. "I am hoping, sweetheart, that you'll move onto another scheme to put your cleverness into the service of humankind." She led the way into the living room. "And look! The macaroons are cool enough to serve too. However, only those who pass a little test will get any with their coffee."

"What test?" Belle frowned.

"Why?" Chrissy asked.

Woody looked wistful. "Gee," he mumbled. "I was never really that good at—"

"Oh no, not you, Woody dear. You get them without a test. The test is for those who think they are better than others."

"Wait," Belle said. "Actually, I don't knock ignorance. Ignorance can be strangely exhilarating."

"Not to mention liberating," Chrissy rushed in. "If you don't know all the things that can go wrong, all the things that have already been tried and not worked, why—you can be so inventive, soooo..."

"Creative," Belle said. "For starters, you can coin your own terminology." She edged toward the macaroons. "Some say ignorance actually facilitates out-of-the-box thinking. Couple an average intellect with some ignorance of the basics, and you can get one powerful politician. Opens up whole new vistas of stuff he wants to do, he thinks he can do. And after all, isn't self-confidence the absolute prerequisite for leadership?"

On the television screen, the candidate frowned and pursed his lips into a tight smile. "We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile. I'm a free trader. I'll work to end terriers, tariffs and barriers everywhere."

***


If you would like to weigh in on either side of this argument, please send me a note. Clever zingers are especially welcome. BG.