Back in the 70s I worked for the General Accounting Office, which is headed by the Comtroller General of the United States, who serves a 15-year term and retires on full salary.

When I went to work there, the CG was Elmer Staats, who was nearing the end of his term. Oddly enough, I mentioned to my father one day that Staats would be leaving soon, and he perked up his ears. "Would that be Elmer Boyd Staats?" "Yep," I replied. My father then told me that he had hired Staats out of college as a bookkeeper over 40 years before!

Now, to make this a word post. I was at a meeting of people who worked at GAO, and Staats was there to give us a rousing pep talk prior to a very onerous and difficult assignment's startup. All the high mucky-mucks in GAO were there to provide similar support, and the emcee went into this long introduction of Staats which concluded, "And now I want you to give a rousing hand to the Comptroller General, Elmer Staats, a man of HIGH MORAL TURPITUDE!" Grady, the emcee, doesn't work there any more.

Oh, the pronunciation of Comptroller was about evenly split between controller and COMPtroller.


TEd