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ImageSMART TALK

by Dr. Dot Pilcrow




TROOPER: After Smith Middle School, students here in Underbelly, Texas, go to Wesson High. Here, they take English courtesy of my dear friend, Shirley Markem Lowe. She’s wonderful. We seldom get her ex-students as patients at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired.

In recent years, she tells me she’s had to pounce on an increasing use of trooper when the student report on, say, Annie Get Your Gun describes the star with “She’s a real trooper.”

Of course, the unfortunate student, who will suffer, you may be sure, should have used trouper. A trouper is part of the troupe, a company of actors or dancers, and the show must go on, you know.

A trooper is a military officer, especially one of those dashing officers in a cavalry unit. And those handsome state policemen are called troopers, too.


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