We all remeber this one: Dan Quayle was at the Luis Munoz Rivera School in Trenton, New Jersey. He was there helping with a spelling bee. He asked a student to spell the word "potato." The student spelled the word correctly, then, Dan Quayle made him go back up to the board to add an "e" on the end of the word.
According to Ann Compton at ABC News, there's more to this "potatoe" tale than was originally reported. Quoting from her article here:
"The first boy to the blackboard was assigned the word 'potato' by Quayle and the boy wrote it in chalk correctly. Without glancing back at the index card in his hand, Quayle prompted the lad, 'Didn’t you forget one little thing? An e.'
"The student dutifully added the 'e' and the room applauded … including the principal, the superintendent, and the teacher who had misspelled the word 'potatoe' on the card Quayle held in his hand.
"Quayle never complained publicly about the teacher's mistake."
The original article is at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/OnBackground/onbackground990927.html.
He did NOT handle this situation wisely AT ALL!!! No one in the room knew that he was holding a mistaken card in his hand! IF he really did know how to spell the word, he should have just applauded the boy for spelling it correctly in the first place, and let the spelling lesson continue. By telling the boy to add the "e", he made himself look stupid and he confused an impressionable child. Also, if he'd just kept his mouth shut, only he and the teacher would have known. By correcting the boy, he ended up calling more attention to the teacher's mistake than if he had come straight out and said to everyone in the room, "Hey Teacher, there's no 'E' in potato!" Everyone in the room would have known then...everyone in the WORLD does now!
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