Stupid .... tricks

[Gareth Branwyn]

"James A. Landau" wrote:

> "stupid accounting tricks"---"stupid .... tricks" is in my experience a phrase used only by computer people (I remember a collection of "stupid UNIX tricks" in the newspaper Computerworld several years back) but it could easily have arisen elsewhere.
>

"Stupid .... tricks" originated (I believe) with David Letterman when he
was still at NBC. "Stupid human tricks" was a regular segment (where
people did silly bar-bet types of stunts). But then, the bit (and the
term) may have come from Steve Allen, from whom Letterman got most of
his act. They still do stupid human tricks periodically on CBS. When
Letterman left NBC, there was a big intellectual property stink about
whether he could take the bit, and the name, to CBS.

Gareth