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From: gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.games.trivia
Subject: Re: Hobson's Choice
Message-ID: <251@ihu1m.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Jan-85 00:23:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ihu1m.251
Posted: Thu Jan 24 00:23:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 19:43:26 EST
References: <4307@ucbvax.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 22

--
>> 	Who was Hobson?  What was the choice he had to make?

>> Thanks.
>> Wayne Citrin

Hobson didn't have any choice to make, but then neither did his
clientelle.  Thomas Hobson ran a stable, in England I think, and
required his customers to take the horse closest to the barn door.
"Hobson's choice" is no choice at all, although it carries the
implication of the illusion of one.  The term is often misused
to mean a generic, weighty dilemma, as in "between the devil and
the deep blue sea".  That phrase, incidentally, has nothing to do
with theology.  The pieces of caulk that seal the spaces between
the planks on wood boats are called "devils".
-- 
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