Ignorance Stick Re: Rat-tail(ed) broom

[Wilson Gray]

I recall both Damon Knight and even that title, though, unfortunatelt,
not the plot of the story. IAC, quelle concidence!

-Wilson


On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goodman <dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM>
> Subject:      Ignorance Stick Re: Rat-tail(ed) broom
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
>> IAC, it looks roughly like an "ignorant stick" / "ignorance stick" -
>> pushbroom - with the handle removed and a third or so of the bristles
>> removed from the head, with the empty space carved, so to speak, into
>> a handle.
>>
>> BTW, I once read somewhere - Mario Pei, yet again? - that "ignorant
>> stick" originally referred to the spade as a tool of ditch-diggers.
>>
> See Damon Knight's sf story "Idiot Stick."
>>
>> But, IME, it was:
>>
>> "... pushing the ignorant stick ..."
>>
>> "What's that?"
>>
>> "Doing porter-work."
>>
>> --
>> Dan Goodman
>> "I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
>> Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
>> Journal dsgood.dreamwidth.org (livejournal.com, insanejournal.com)
>>
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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