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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“The plot was simple. Betty Suarez desires a job in publishing. After she applies at MODE magazine, where she has a disastrous interview, she finds herself mysterious hired as assistant to editor Daniel Meade, playboy son of Meade Publishing owner Bradford Meade. It turns out that Bradford had seen her leaving the building and ordered her hired for his son simply because she is as far from a fashion model in appearance as can be imagined. She has terrible hair, dresses horridly, has garish braces, thick glasses (and eyebrows), and carries more weight than your standard attractive woman. Father makes her employment mandatory for his rare-do-well son. Very quickly, however, she proves herself not merely necessary for Daniel’s professional life, but a good friend as well. One of the most attractive aspects of the show is, in fact, their genuinely caring, completely platonic, friendship. Working at MODE pulls Betty into a world of interoffice intrigue and political infighting. To be honest, I could have lived without any of the stories. The appeal was just about 100% based on a large number of likable and adorable characters popping up each week.”
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Welcome to the forum, lesle.
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You’ve found a very nice reshaping. In fact, it is so nice that it is suspect of having been done deliberately. (This is a problem with a number of highly promising eggcorn candidates.) The notion of someone who usually gets things wrong but occasionally does well (as opposed to one who never gets things right) is a useful concept, and this is a nice way to express it. It is certainly sometimes used on purpose, e.g.
His father is less a ne’er-do-well than a well-intentioned rare-do-well. He can’t hold a job and sometimes walks on the shady side of the street.
If there were dozens of cases, the chances that all of them were advertent would go down a bit. But there don’t seem to be more than a scant handful; besides the one you listed I found only the following:
Just released from jail he is a rare-do-well who drinks more than he should.
my last name does not” POLAMALU, the fact that their rare-do-well signal-caller is back in the saddle again – No means no,
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-10-14 15:41:43)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Interesting twist despite its rarity. Here’s another that is equally ungrammatical but not as transparent: a near-do-well. This one is quite common. I get the sense that it can mean “substandard; near-miss” or else “succeeded by association with someone successful – notably a father”.
political blog
Another near-do-well who got his start with Poppy’s money
Political Dirty tricks
Bob Roche was pictured as a slovenly, drunken, near-do-well because he spoke to the group Drinking Liberally
News comment
You are going to sit on a near do well pity party site until you find another crummy underpaid job with no more financial security than you thought you had before.
News comment
Who??? Oh yeah, that “near do well son” who drove our country into the ground.
book review
I changed from a lethargic, procrastinating, near-do-well to an extremely productive, successful (both professionally and personally), and not-unhappy individual.
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Both near-do-well and rare-do-well benefit from the fact that ne’er-do-well can hardly be used except somewhat hyperbolically: anybody that is called a ne’er-do-well is, of necessity, more accurately a rare-do-well if not a near-do-well .
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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