The publicity hound, Jesse Jackson, has been duped and and has duped, too. That's a great way of teaching English grammar. What's the difference between those two verbs? Which action came first?
Grammatically, the sequence is that one of Rev. Jackson's Arab connections told him that "the Israeli hostages in Lebanon are alive and well," and he believed them and told the families that he had come to negotiate their release. So he went to Israel to "act as an intermediary in helping to return abducted Israeli hostages to Israel." The fact that Hezbollah hadn't allowed the International Red Cross to see the Israelis didn't shake his confidence in the honesty and accuracy of his friends' messages.
Unfortunately, after waiting, uselessly, in Lebanon to conduct his "talks," Jackson discovered that he had been duped. Yes, those verbs are in the passive.
But, sadly, the consequences of his being duped caused him to dupe the Israeli families and public. Now for "active." He duped them into believing that the hostages were well, and he could arrange their release. Of course, that's because Hezbollah duped him.
What's the linguistic connection between "dupe" and "dope?"
2 comments:
A dope is someone who can be easily duped. And if you take too much dope, almost anyone can dupe you!
But as ole Abe said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, etc."
Ahh Hahh!
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