commenter vs. commentator

[Mark Mandel]

Paging Pa Ingalls...

In one of her "Little House on the Prairie" series of autobiographical
novels set in the 1870's and 1880's, Laura Ingalls Wilder describes a social
event at the church, a game of charades or something similar (she may have
called it a "charade", I'm not sure). A person, or possibly a group of
people, would come up, often dressed up in some costume, and the
congregation would have to guess who or what they were representing. I
paraphrase from memory now:

"Pa's charade was the best of all. He did it in his everyday clothes,
walking up the center aisle from the back of the church carrying his axe out
in front of him, balancing two small potatoes on its blades. That was all.
No one could guess it, even though he gave them hints: 'You all know it.
Some of you have it at home. You couldn't study Paul without it.' No one
could figure it out. Finally he told them: 'Common taters on the axe'."

m a m
(on topic with an anecdotal antedate)

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Bruce Hunter <bhunter3 at mindspring.com>wrote:

> I thought it worked like this---
> You buy a cluster of French Fries from a fast food chain. One of them
> always sticks up farther than the rest. That's the potentator. The rest
> are all commontators.
> Ducking and burrowing back into the woodwork,
> Bruce Hunter
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> > Daughter potato of wealth & privilege:
> >
> > "Father! I'm getting married. Edward has finally proposed!"
> >
> > Father potato of wealth & privilegrbackground:
> >
> > "To which Edward do you refer?"
> >
> > Daughter potato:
> >
> > "You know who he is, father! Edward R. Murrow!"
> >
> > Father:
> >
> > "Absolutely *not*!"
> >
> > Daughter:
> >
> > "But, father! Why not?!"
> >
> > Father:
> >
> > "He's a commentator."
> >
> >
> > Considered very funny when I was a teen-ager, in the 'Fifties.
> >
> > -Wilson
>

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