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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1988-11-09, Page 5After last week's column I earned a few )rownie points at home and I hope all you folks out there who were starting to feel sorry for hubby now feel better. My knight in shining armour had to come to my rescue once again this past week. Wednesday mornings for me are very busy; trying to get to town early, deliver the papers to the stores and still make cof- fee club. Last Wednesday upon arising and glanc- ing in the mirror I realized something had to be done to my straight locks before I could go anywhere. Of course I had slept in a little too long. My cat has taken to sleep- ing in also and I can't even rely on him anymore. Typical male! Number one son needs his lunch and breakfast made, I need to shower and curl my hair. All this was accomplished in a record breaking time. Out the door I go, crank the radio up and start down the road (in the car). A dif- ferent noise is heard which at first I thought was on the radio. No, it wasn't the radio, it was something on the car. gbate time now, continue on or stop. I stglf3ped, got out and walked around the car and what greets my sleepy eyes but a tire with a flat bottom. Now I am not too bright around. cars but even I could figure out I wasn't going any further until this was repaired. I seem to recall hearing hubby say something about driving on a flat tire causing further damage to something.? Next I had to decide which way to start 1'0 THE EDITOR Letter receives reply Dear Sir, Thank you very much for publishing my letter in your newspaper. In return, I received a letter from Mrs. Ira Dickie, a relative who was able to give me some in- formation regarding my family. She men- tioned the Lucknow History Book. Could you please put me in contact with someone who could tell me where to send for the book and how much it costs?. I very much appreciate all your help. Yours Truly, John Gollan Lloydminster, Alberta To the Editor: Excuse me but, I am sitting here in the province of Quebec, and I cannot believe my eyes! A letter to the editor from Barrie has me shaking my head. O.K. I admit that everything the French of this country have they have brought on themselves. But, they do deserve the same respect as I would hope you would give to any neighbour. Now, you have to admit that because of the very real size of the population and their effect on the rest of the population you have to speak French to become prime minister. If we want our children to have national possibilities to affect our total system in any field, we have to have the sense to open all the doors we can. Only in this way can the local influence be spread all over. Yes, this does have to work both ways. I am a product of grade 5 to grade 12 Huron County French training, and frank- ly I am lost m Quebec. It was a useful foun- dation but the inability to form sentences and make conversation made seven years of sufficient marks USELESS. Immersion is the 80's answer to get into the 90's. It may not be perfect but ex- perience tells me that immersion works better than the 70's answer. Something has to be done to upgrade the training that is available. I will not dignify the letter of October 26 with direct comment. Suffice it to rest as I have already stated. These people are our neighbours. As a society,..everything we English have, we have brought on ourselves. I had to look twice to be sure I was reading the Lucknow Sentinel. That did not sound like the neighbours I remember and I know are still there. It is not a DIFFERENT language, it is ANOTHER language. Think of it in addi- tion to your vocabulary. ' Stephen T. PritLkhard Lachine, Quebec walking. Our road is normally quite busy, but of course when you need help no one is in sight. After a brief hesitation I decided to walk down the hill to a neighbour to use the phone. They were very kind, the man of the house offering to change the tire for me. I said no thank you, hubby is at home and he will come and rescue me! When hubby answered the phone he was greeted with "Hi hon, guess what- I have a flat." Now hubby is a little slow to unders- tand verbage in the morning, but he picked up on this one really quick. (Do you think I lost any brownie points with that last remark? ) Back to the car and wait for my knight to arrive equipped with the air compressor. One look at the tire and he discovers a hole in an apparently weird spot. The com- pressor will be of no use and a complete change is required. I really felt I should stand on the side of the road and assist or make some conversation, but darn it, it was so cold, I jumped back in the car and waited for my mechanic to finish the job, which I will admit did not him very long. By this time, I am an hour late arriving in town. Members of the coffee club are wondering what has happened to me, after all it IS paper day. The stores in town are looking for the papers. Two post offices are calling - they haven't received their papers. My hair is completely straight - hanging in my eyes, my temper has boiled over and hurricane Pat is ready to start screaming! My ad manager, upon seeing me blow into the office, is greeted with Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, November 9, 1988—Page 5 AMBLINGS by Pat Livingston "I'll be back after I calm down". ' A quick cup of coffee and a muffin while letting my friendly, sympathetic hair dresser curl my locks finally put me in a calmer frame of mind. I hate days like that one. When you start the morning off bad, the whole day seems be wrecked. I can tell you, I didn't ac- complish a lot last Wednesday. Typos Over the last few weeks you are sure to have noticed the many incorrect punctua- tions marks in my column. I really do know the correct use of exclamation marks, questions marks and dollar signs. I have had some comments on all the little dollars signs showing up at the end of my sentences. Those little dollar signs were really supposed to be exclamation marks. The little 0 were supposed to be question marks. At the Sentinel we use a mini disk ter- minal (MDT). This beast has the alphabet and numbers in the same place as an or- dinary typewriter, however, the little ex- tras one uses (!?$) change depending on the keyboard arrangement used. For ex- ample if using arrangement 1765 the ex- clamation mark is the upper case of the dollar key, a question mark is uppper case of the number zero. On arrangement 500 ( which is the one my disks were supposed to be progr' ! tned for) the exclamation mark is on a different key as is the ques- tion mark. You are probably thinking that should be easy to follow, just look at the screen to be sure. NOT SO! On the screen when I type an exclamation point it doesn't show ! ,it shows the percent sign. When I type a ? it shows an arrow. To make a long story short, I now have all my disks pro- grammed to the 500 keyboard, I only have to program the grey matter between my ears! Another point raised recently was a question of proof reading. Any of our staff who compose their stories on an MDT are expected to proof read their own copy. If stories are typeset by our composing department in Goderich, another person - the proofreader - reads and corrects the copy. Although we do try to be very careful with our spelling and punctuation, errors do occur in the copy. When one has com- posed directly on a screen 6" by 5", read it through numerous times to see where your train of thought is going and then checked it again for spelling etc., it is not too dif- ficult to miss something. Wednesday mor- nings when we open the,paper, the error jumps off the page at you and you wonder how it could have been missed. This does nc excuse our errors, but offers an ex- planation only of how easy it is to make them. 10% off Ordered Bridesmaid Gowns 15% off Ordered Wedding Gowns 20% off Invitations 20% off Daytime Wear 20% off IN STOCK WEDDING GOWNS Many "Instore" Specials CLOSED WEDNESDAY EVENINGS BY APPOINTMENT SPECIAL SELECTION OF WEDDING GOWNS $200 LARGEST SELECTION IN THE AREA I House of Brides MON.-SAT. 9-5:30 FRI. 9-8:00 WALKERTON PHONE 881-2835