Neverisms

by Mardy Grothe

  Never underestimate the booberie of the booboisie.H. L. MENCKEN

  Mencken coined the term “booboisie” (BOOB-wah-ZEE, a blend of boob and the French term bourgeoisie) to capture his contempt for uncultured Americans—especially those in powerful positions—and their tendency to become consumed with superficialities or guided by idiotic ideas.

  Never underestimate the wrath you can incur

  by taking more than one parking place.RICHARD A. MORAN, in his 2006 book Nuts, Bolts, & Jolts:

  Fundamental Business and Life Lessons You Must Know

  Never underestimate the power of looking cute.MICHAEL NASTASI

  This was the caption to a photograph of an adorable puppy in Nastasi’s Never Bite When a Growl Will Do, his 2006 book of endearing dog photographs.

  Never underestimate the ignorance of the American audience.GEORGE JEAN NATHAN,

  noted American theater critic

  Never underestimate the power

  of the unwritten rules of organizational politics.BEN NELSON & PETER ECONOMY, in

  Managing for Dummies, 2nd ed. (2003)

  The authors added that “The unwritten rules carry just as much importance, if not more, than the written rules contained in the company’s policy manuals.”

  Never underestimate the potential power of

  your opening line to hook your reader from the start.ALICE ORR, in No More Rejections: 50 Secrets

  to Writing a Manuscript That Sells (2004)

  Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, on Gen. Douglas MacArthur

  Never underestimate the power of an irate customer.JOEL E. ROSS & MICHAEL J. KAMI, in Corporate

  Management in Crisis (1973)

  Never underestimate the power of passion.EVE SAWYER

  This is an enormously popular observation, found on almost every quotation website, and in many quotation anthologies. After years of searching, I’ve been unable to locate any biographical information on Sawyer, except that she was an American journalist.

  Never underestimate the power of what you wear.OSCAR SCHOEFFLER

  Schoeffler, the longtime fashion editor at Esquire magazine, added: “After all, there is just a small bit of you sticking out at the collar and cuff. The rest of what the world sees is what you drape on your frame.”

  Never underestimate a problem or your power to cope with it.ROBERT H. SCHULLER, in Tough Times

  Never Last, but Tough People Do (1996)

  Never underestimate the mental health benefits of exercise.DAVID SERVAN-SCHREIBER, in “Run for Your Life,”

  a 2004 article in Psychotherapy Networker

  Never underestimate the power of a woman spurned.MARCELLA SHIELDS, in Once Upon a

  Time There Was a Little Girl (2008)

  Never underestimate the power of jealousy

  and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that.OLIVER STONE

  Stone, with his characteristic fondness for conspiracy theories, said this in an interview with Harry Kreisler of the University of California at Berkeley in 1977. He began by saying:I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power. This is a rule of life to me. We learn it in the first grade. If you’ve got power, you better watch your back because people are going to be jealous, and envy and jealousy are reigning emotions in this life.

  Never underestimate the appeal of anything that was fun at age seven.NEIL STRAUSS, offering a principle of pickup artists,

  in Rules of the Game (2007)

  Never underestimate the heart of a champion.RUDY TOMJANOVICH

  This saying—now something of a cliché in sports circles—was repeatedly used by coach Tomjanovich when his Houston Rockets won back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and 1995.

  Never underestimate intuition.BRAD TONINI, in The New Rules of

  the Game for Entrepreneurs (2006)

  Never underestimate a man’s ability to underestimate a woman.KATHLEEN TURNER, in the film

  V. I. Warshawski (1991)

  Turner, as hardboiled private investigator V. I. Warshawski, dispensed this womanly wisdom to Angela Goethals, who played the daughter of a professional hockey player who had been murdered. The film’s producers had hoped the Warshawski character would become a franchise for Turner, but the movie fared badly at the box office, despite some great one-liners. The movie was based on the fictional character created by writer Sara Peretsky, but this never underestimate line does not appear in any of her novels.

  Never underestimate the importance of soundbites.LISSA WARREN, in The Savvy Author’s

  Guide to Book Publicity (2003)

  Warren added: “A soundbite is a turn of phrase, a quip, a clever statement said with authority. It’s controversial, or brilliant, or funny, or profound. You know you’re soundbiting well when what you say is called out in a ‘pull quote.’ ”

  Never underestimate the other guy.JACK WELCH, in Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001)

  About his experiences as CEO of General Electric, Welch wrote: “We tried like hell to look at every new product plan in the context of what the smartest competitor could do to trump us.”

  Never underestimate the ability of a politician to (a) say something and not tell you very much, (b) do it with style, and (c) touch all the bases.ROBERT H. WILLIAMS

  Paul Dickson called this “Williams’s Law of Political Rhetoric” in The Official Rules for Lawyers, Politicians . . . and Everyone They Torment (1996).

  Never overestimate the number of people who buy and read books,

  even when those books might solve pressing problems for them.THOMAS A. WILLIAMS, in Publish Your Own Magazine,

  Guidebook, or Weekly Newspaper (2002)

  Never underestimate a child’s ability to get into more trouble.STEVEN WRIGHT (also attributed to Martin Mull)

  six

  Never Trust a Computer You Can’t Lift

  “Never Trust” Neverisms

  On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer cofounder Steve Jobs unveiled the new Macintosh computer to an auditorium packed with Apple enthusiasts. In one of the most anticipated product launches in history, it would be the first time anyone outside the company had actually seen a “Mac,” as it was already being called. Expectations for the Macintosh were so high that some in the company feared they might never be met. Two days earlier, the new computer had been introduced in one of television history’s most dramatic commercials.

  During the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII between the Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders, television viewers around the world were captivated by a slickly produced commercial that began with a dark and disturbing portrayal of a futuristic world where oppressed zombie-like subjects are forcibly marched into a large auditorium to be force-fed a pontificating lecture from a man whose face appears on a huge screen. It was a perfect portrayal of “Big Brother” from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. As this depressing scene begins to unfold, a beautiful blond athlete in red shorts and white tank-top runs into the auditorium. Pursued by menacing storm troopers, the young woman is carrying a sledge hammer. As she nears the front of the auditorium, she hurls the hammer with a mighty heave, shattering the large screen. And then, as the dark auditorium is bathed in sunlight, a narrator says:

  On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh.

  And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”

  Created by the New York advertising firm Chiat/Day, the commercial was directed by filmmaker Ridley Scott, who had recently achieved fame for Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). Scott’s production team had been given a budget of $700,000 for the commercial, an astonishing amount at the time. The commercial, titled 1984, was telecast only this one single time, but it’s difficult to name a television advertisement that has had a bigger impact. That evening, as Super Bowl commercials received their traditional postgame scrutiny, it was the clear fan favorite. In the days following the Super Bowl, the powerful mini-movie garnered millions of doll
ars of free publicity for Apple as it was replayed again and again on television news and sports programs. Six years later, Advertising Age hailed 1984 as “The Commercial of the Decade.”

  Two days after the Super Bowl, Apple CEO Steve Jobs—nattily attired in a bow tie and double-breasted blue blazer, and looking as dapper as a Hollywood leading man—stepped up to a mike in front of an auditorium packed with people eager to learn more about this new product. Behind Jobs was a large screen, and several feet away, on top of a table, was a simple nylon bag with a zipper around the top. After announcing, “All of the images you are about to see on the large screen will be generated by what’s in that bag,” Jobs removed the computer and another small object—a recent computer innovation known as a “mouse”—and set the bag aside. He then reached into his vest pocket, removed a disk, and inserted it into a slot in the front of the machine. Almost immediately, to Vangelis’s majestic theme song from the 1982 film Chariots of Fire, the machine came to life. There were howls of appreciation from the audience as the large screen duplicated the many graphic images on the computer’s nine-inch screen. It was an impressive kick-off, to be sure. And it was about to get better.

  Jobs continued, “We’ve done a lot of talking about Macintosh recently. But today, for the first time ever, I’d like to let Macintosh speak for itself.” Then, in an electronic voice that sounded like the love child of Arnold Schwarzenegger and C–3PO from Star Wars, the computer began to speak. It was a first-time-ever experience for the audience, and they loved every minute of it. The computer began by cracking a joke about being let out of the bag, and then said:

  Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,

  I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of

  the first time I met an IBM mainframe:

  “Never trust a computer you can’t lift.”

  The audience went wild over this clever swipe at Apple’s main rival in the computer business, and the demonstration drove home a point that Apple executives had long been making: computers didn’t have to be big, unattractive, and devoid of humor; they could be small, beautiful to look at, and lots of fun. The talking computer portion of the demonstration ended with a final—and extraordinarily clever—comment that was fully appreciated by all who knew that the Macintosh was the brainchild of the CEO in the front of the room:

  Obviously I can talk, but right now I’d like to sit back and listen.

  So, it is with considerable pride that I introduce

  a man who’s been like a father to me . . . Steve Jobs.

  Jobs went on to finish the launch, which is now regarded as one of the greatest product kick-offs in manufacturing history. As the months passed, it was obvious that the Mac had fundamentally altered the landscape of the personal computing world. And that clever line about never trusting a computer you can’t lift became one of the most popular quotations of 1984. You can view its inception yourself by going to the neverisms menu of my website (www.drmardy.com) and selecting the “YouTube Neverisms” link. When the line was first delivered, though, there were probably few in the audience who fully appreciated the place that never trust observations occupy in human history.

  It all started twenty-five hundred years earlier when a former Greek slave with a talent for storytelling began to formally compile popular folk tales, many of them from India and other Eastern countries. That man, of course, was Aesop, history’s first famous fabulist (the technical term for a teller of fables). Since the time of the ancient Greeks, Aesop’s Fables have been among history’s most popular stories, and for many centuries in the West they have been a staple in the hands of parents and educators attempting to provide moral instruction to young children. Most of the stories can be told in under two minutes—short enough to fit into the most limited attention span—and many feature animals who not only talk, but display a full range of human feelings.

  In Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Goat,” a fox falls into a deep well and is unable to escape. A curious goat, passing by, asks what is going on. The fox tells the goat that a great drought is coming and the only way to be sure to have water is to jump into the well. After the gullible goat jumps in, the fox jumps on his back, stands on his horns, and escapes to safety. As the fox bids his farewell to the duped goat, who is now stranded in the well, he says:

  Remember next time,

  never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.

  It’s a terrific tale and an elegantly simple portrayal of a complex phenomenon that is still true today—the advice of people in trouble should be regarded with suspicion because their recommendations will likely be self-serving.

  In “The Fox and the Crow,” yet another Aesop fable, a hungry fox spies a crow with a piece of food in its beak. Walking over to the tree where the crow is perched, the fox exclaims, “What a beautiful bird! What elegant plumage.” Noticing that the crow is pleased by the flattery, the fox continues to lay it on: “If your voice were equal to your beauty, then you would deserve the title of Queen of all the birds.” Taken in by the ruse, the crow opens its beak to let out a loud caw. As the food tumbles out of the open beak, the hungry fox gobbles it up. Walking off, the fox looks back at the crow and says, “Your voice is fine, but your wit is lacking.” The moral of the story?

  Never trust a flatterer.

  As the centuries passed, people followed the model of Aesop and began using the words never trust as something like a prefix that could be attached to a whole host of admonitions. You’ll find a few never trust quotations in other chapters of the book, but the remainder of this chapter will be devoted exclusively to them.

  Never trust a proctologist with both hands on your shoulders.ANONYMOUS

  Humor has long helped people get through life’s difficult moments, and of all the jokes created to help men deal with anxiety about rectal examinations, this is one of the best. Many other wonderful never trust observations have been authored by anonymous sources. Here are a few of my favorites:

  Never trust a dog to guard your food.

  Never trust a man who says he’s a feminist.

  Never trust a man who says he has no bad habits.

  Never trust a man who wears a shirt and tie with jeans.

  Never trust a politician, especially when he’s speaking.

  Never trust someone who tells you to never trust someone.

  Never trust your memory;

  it makes you forget a favor in a few days,

  while it helps you remember an injury for years.

  Never trust anyone over thirty.

  This 1960s catchphrase has been attributed to all of the famous revolutionary figures of the period—Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd, Jerry Rubin, and Mario Savio—but it is now fairly certain that the original author of the sentiment was a twenty-four-year-old University of California protester named Jack Weinberg. In 1964, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Weinberg as saying: “We have a saying in the movement that you can’t trust anybody over thirty.” Weinberg later admitted that the saying occurred to him on the spur of the moment, but he phrased it as a “movement” maxim to give it an air of authority. Over time, you can’t trust evolved into never trust, and that is the version history remembers. The saying has been parodied in many ways, but the most creative alteration I’ve seen comes from the quotation anthologist Robert Byrne: “Never trust anyone over-dirty.” Byrne’s tweaking of the saying even inspired me to attempt a spin-off: “Never trust anyone over-flirty.”

  Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.ANONYMOUS

  This admonition has been attributed to Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Oscar Wilde, but it was almost certainly authored by some anonymous wit. The most famous citation of the quotation occurred in 1992. Vice President Dan Quayle was on a political trip to New York City when his aides arranged for a publicity stop at a middle school in Trenton, New Jersey. During his visit, school officials staged a spelling bee and asked the vice president to assist. When Quayle asked twelve-year-old
sixth-grader William Figueroa to spell “potato,” the lad did so correctly on a chalkboard. Quayle looked at the board and then quietly said to the boy, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The ‘e’ on the end.” William reluctantly added the vowel and, as he did, the assembled politicos and members of the press gave him a round of applause.

  When the event ended, nothing was said about the incident, and the vice president began taking questions. Near the end of the press conference, after a reporter asked, “How do you spell potato?” the vice president knew something was up. For the next few days, the incident was all over the news, with many pundits and Quayle critics viewing it as yet another example of the VP’s lack of intelligence. Quayle tried to make light of the matter, even citing Mark Twain as the author of the “only one way to spell a word” quotation. The story continued to hound Quayle for the remainder of his term, and it is an incident from his life that he has said many times he would prefer to forget.

  Never trust anything you read in a travel article.DAVE BARRY, in Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1989)

  Barry added: “Travel articles appear in publications that sell large expensive advertisements to tourism-related industries, and these industries do not wish to see articles like: URUGUAY: DON’T BOTHER.”

  Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got.