CLOUT (and how to use it) — by Steve Nadis
I’ve lived in Cambridge a long time and after awhile you make some connections. After some decades in this fair city, I am now on a first-name basis with the assistant to a City Councillor (NOT an assistant City Councillor). I have not yet exploited that connection; I’m still waiting for the most opportune time. Incidentally, I just learned that the wife of a guy I’ve started chatted with at the Cambridge Y is an assistant to a different City Councillor, so I have yet another avenue to tap into down the road. But I’m going to hold onto that card until I really need it. That’s clout.
Posted by in 14:48:08
Hi Snake, I just looked up “clout” in my 1969 Merriam Webster dictionary. Apparently, 40 years ago, the word did not have its current sense as “pull” or “influence.” It is listed as “cloth” or “article of clothing” on the on hand; and on the other, “a blow esp. with the hand” and “a hit in baseball” (now THAT’s archaic!).
Well, as a handball player, you must really know what a “blow with the hand” means. So you have got the full, psycho-physical, holographic grasp of what it means to have clout. Cambridge will never be the same!
Hello GM, thanks for the scholarly take on “clout.”
By the way, BLOG.COM is rejecting my password and preventing me from getting a new one, which is why I have been unable to post for nearly a week. I hope to straighten this out but no one at blog.com is responding to my queries. If I can’t resolve this matter, it may be the end of CALL ME SNAKE… –Snake