Who's Right Lucy? Or Ricky? (Gossip Question)

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK I was watching I Love Lucy, and this was the situation. You are the jury, :slight_smile:

Ricky accuses Lucy of gossiping. Lucy counters while this is so, men are just as bad at it. An argument insues with the Mertzes becoming entangled with predictable hillarious results.

Now the bet is on and of course each side (Ricky & Fred -vs- Lucy & Ethel) resorts to cheating.

Ricky and Fred pretend they are asleep and make up a story about their neighbor. The men pretend they are talking in their sleep. They make up a story about their neighbor Grace Foster running away with the milkman.

Lucy and Ethel over hear this talking in their sleep and now have to restrain themselves from gossiping. The girls eventually succumb to the gossip and talk about it.

The men overhear and claim they won. Lucy counters that because the men weren’t asleep when they told them the story, the MEN were gossiping and Ethel and Lucy thus win.

Ricky refuses this argument saying that it was all just made up and he knew it so it wasn’t gossip but Lucy and Ethel BELIEVED IT so they WERE gossiping.

While Ethel protests, Lucy admits defeat, of course never count Lucy out.

Lucy simply pays the milkman and Mr Foster $5.00 each to pretend that Grace is actually having it off with the milkman, right in front of Fred and Ricky. So Lucy says “So there was no truth to the story, huh?”

Ricky and Fred now bewildered, admit defeat.

While that is the plot for the 1 person who has never seen I Love Lucy, :smiley:
I agree with Lucy in the first place.

I say gossip doesn’t have to be true in the first place and that ANY spreading of ANY story true or false, whether you believe it or not is gossip.

What do you think?

2

Lucy/Ethel were gossiping and Ricky/Fred were not. Ricky and Fred were telling fiction to bait a trap, they weren’t spreading a story at all.

Now, that fact that there’s no proof the story went further than Lucy and Ethel kind of mitigates their offense. They gossiped amongst themselves but may not have spread the story farther.

I agree that the veracity of the story being spread is moot.

3

L&E were gossiping, R&F weren’t, IMO.

I remember that episode, too! I still love Lucy!

4

I think it matters a lot whether the story you’re spreading around is true or not–spreading a true story is gossip, whereas spreading a story you know is false is malicious gossip. The second one is a whole lot worse.

And if you tell something to someone who you know good and well will spread the story around, you certainly don’t have a moral high ground from which to look down on them for gossiping. You’re just as guilty for spreading the story around as the bigmouth who told 15 people because if you had kept zipped the bigmouth wouldn’t have known.

For an example, say Lucy and Ethel hadn’t just told each other. Say they’d each told 2 other people (in the strictest confidence, of course) and within 2 days the whole block was talking about Grace leaving her husband. Who do you hold most culpable for the resulting damage? For my money, Ricky and Fred; they knew Lucy and Ethel would tell other people, and furthermore, they knew the story was potentially damaging and made up out of whole cloth.

5

Ricky and Fred weren’t gossiping, they were pranking.

6

See I think that whether the story is true or false is not relevent.

Gossip can be totally false and you know it and spread it.

Fred and Ricky set out to spread a rumour. This, to me, is gossip. They told Lucy and Ethel knowing good and well they’d tell.

I think this is the same thing as Lucy and Ethel going out of their way to talk about this too.

7

Nope, they set out to win a bet.

8

I think Ricky wins this one, as it was a false story made up with the sole purpose of trapping Lucy and Ethel into gossiping.

Also, I often use Grace Foster as a user name.

Also also, I have always thought, even prior to discovering this board, that Grace Foster & the Milkmen would be an excellent band name.

9

The truth or falsity are irrelevant.

L&E were gossiping, but R&F were engaging in entrapment. When someone is entrapping someone, they are not guilty of a crime. When an undercover cop entraps a pedophile or a john, he/she is not guilty of pedophilia or prostitution.