Pros from Dover

[Millie Webb]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: Pros from Dover


>         IIRC, it's just that:  In the 1968 novel, the surgeons described
themselves as "the pros from Dover" to give the impression that they were
the golf pros at the Dover golf course.  There is no Dover golf course,
naturally, or at least the surgeons didn't have a particular golf course in
mind.  "Dover" was chosen as suggestive of golf courses in general and
likely to fool the local golf pro into believing it was an actual course
that he just couldn't place at the moment.
>
>         In terms of what the phrase means more generally, I suppose it
refers to pseudo-experts who give vague, manufactured credentials to imply
that they are more knowledgeable than is really the case.
>
> John Baker
>


Gee, you mean like, Bruno Bettelheim?  When I think back on how much damage
he did to so many children and their families....  It has recently come up
again for me.  Did you know his PhD was actually in art history or
something, and had nothing to do with psychology?  And everyone swallowed
his claims that his credentials had been lost during the war for thirty
years.  -- Millie