HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-06-05, Page 2Punctuation—.
Then And Now
Until quite lately I took the
punctuation marks which guide
our reading' pretty much for
granted, as something that had
always been. and always would
be. I noted a few deviations. I
knew they had once been, called
points and that another expres-
' sten for: period was full stop, I
knew the last century used more
commas than we do,
I was aware that the English
in their queer way called our
quotes, inverted commas, and 'I
knew also that the Spahish put
a question mark before, as well
as after, the question, inverting
the first one, 'a most sensible
procedure which tells you a
question is a question when you
most want to know it -before
you start to read it,'
But lately I have been no-
ticing larger things.
The first of these was that
punctuation marks are canniba-
listic. They feed on each other,
making new marks out of old.
Take that question mark which
the Spanish put before as well
as after the question. It's the
semicolon used as a question
mark in medieval Greek manu-
scripts, dismembered and reas-
eembled with the period on the
bottom and the comma turned
around and put on top. The com-
ma itself is a virgule (the slant-
ing stroke you sometimes see be-
tween and and or thusly —
and/or) decapitated and twisted
into a curve.
But that's nothing to the jolt
I. got when I learned that our
ancestors used punctuation
marks not as we do, to make
clear, grammatical structure, but
as reading rests to indicate how
long the reader should pause at
a given place. In the 18th -cen-
tury "Young Ladies' and Gen-
tlemen's Spelling Book" I came
across a table of these rests, here
called stops, marks and pauses:
A comma (,) is a pause in read-
ing until you may tell one.
A semicolon (;) two;
A colon (z) three;
A period (.) four.
Thus you read, and still read,
for this is the punctuation of
the Bible. "The Lord is my Shep-
heard (count, or tell, two); I
shall not want (count four). He
maketh me to lie down in green
pastures (count three: he leadeth
me beside the still waters (count
four)."
Webster in his famous spell-
ing book changed the count a
bit here, He told our great-
grandfathers to count four, not
three, for a colon; six, not four,
for a period. Being a sensible
Nutmeg Yankee, he wanted to
Glow things down,
This makes punctuation much
easier than our modern system
—no grammar, no comma splices.
All you have to know is how to
rest. All you have to do is count.
My next discovery was note
of admiration, which I first came
upon in the "The New -York
Speler," of 1819. Like note of in-
terrogation, for question mark,
it had the old wordy formality
in it and the Latin which we
are getting further and further
away from.
Our grannies also played with
punctuation. I found three points
dramatized in an old rebus
which runs like this:
if the B mt put:
If the B. putting:
Don't put: over a a -der
Yo ed be an * it.
Translated, this rebus, which
once adorned many a sampler
and pot -holder, reads thusly:
If the grate be empty, put
coal on.
If the grate be full, stop put-
ting coal on.
Don't put coal on over a high
fender,
You'd be an ass to risk it.
Great -granddad was a busy man,
as the song tells us, but he knew
al colon from a full stop, a great
er capital B from a small one, a
hyphen from an asterisk, and he
probablyknew that the last was
Greek for small star, to boot.
But those who come closest to
the marks of punctuation are
the ones who have the most fun
with them—the printers. They
have mat 'the melodrama of the
exclamation point into several
phrases. They call it shriek, as-
tonisher, screamer, scare point,
and strike 'em stiff, all image -
making terms of high voltage
for a mark hated by Swift for.
its exuberance. In their efforts
to season monotony with interest,
they cali the question mark the
wonder mark and parentheses
finger nails, thinking of the cut-
tings, no doubt.
Once you're in it, you find
that the story of punctuation,
like that of most human :'inter-
ests, is inexhaustible and not
without its humor. Like�capitali-
zation, it is part of the old-time
learnin'-songs which began with
Great A and ended with gro-
tesque Izzartl and Ampersand:
Great A, little a,
Bouncing B,
The cat's in the cupboard
And she can't see.
If you want any more you can
swing it yourself.—By Horace
Reynolds in The Christian Sci-
ence Monitor,
It's How We Live
That Counts
At least one-third of all man's
illnesses, from the common cold
to cancer, may no'w be traced
scientifically to the patient's en-
vironment and how well he
adapts to it.
This concept of disease was
presented by Dr. Lawrence E,
Hinkle Jr, of New York at a
meeting of the American Col-
lege of Physicians in Atlantic
City, N.J. Its basis was a seven-
year Cornell Medical Centre
study covering some 3,000 per-
sons (American working men
and women, Chinese graduate
students, American college grad-
uates, and Hungarian refugees).
In each of these contrasting
groups, said Dr. Hinkle, was
found the same sickness pattern:
25 per cent of the men and wo-
men studied accounted for 50
per cent of the total illness for
each group.
The great majority of the dis-
ease incidents came in "clusters,"
Dr. Hinkle said, at times when
ehe members of every group
found their life situations and
environments "threatening, un-
satisfying, overdemanding, pro-
ductive of conflict . , against
which conditions they -could
make no satisfactory adaptation."
In general, the conditions in-
volved "disturbed relations with
family members or business as-
sociates, threats to security and
status, and restrictions and lim-
itations which made it impossible
for them to satisfy important
needs and drives."
The disease episodes were not
minor. They ran the gamut of
"major, irreversible, life -endan-
gering illnesses," About 50 to
60 per cent were upper-respira-'
tory disease; 20 per cent affected
the gastrointestinal tract, But
any body function regulated by
the central nervous system might
be influenced by the patient's
unfavorable reaction to environ-
ment, Dr. Hinkle suggested.
In some cases, changes of en-
vironment and of unsatisfactory
life situations might help. But
in the end, Dr, Hinkle thinks, it
is the patient's ability to adjust
to his sieuation that will best
combat disease. "Ultimately," he
said, "medicine will have to take
account of this in the treatment
of illness. In view of the com-
plexities involved . . these ef-
forts will be difficult. time-con-
suming, and not at first highly
rewarding. Nevertheless, t h e
problem of the patient's relation
to his environment stands before
us as a stern challenge to medi-
cine, and not as an easy 'oppor-
tunity." —From NEWSWEEK.
%ITTING' PRETTY — It took Hugh O'Brian eight years and 30
movies, but he's finally made stardom in "The Hell -Bent Kid".
Above, he's sitting pretty with his pretty leading ady, Linda
Crystal who plays his wife.
THE ATOMIUM—Spectators crowd around the Atomium, symbol
of the atomic age at the World's Fair in Brussels, Belgium.
Representing the basic molecular structure, the Atomium' houses
a restaurant and exhibition halls in the aluminum spheres.
They're connected by a system of escalators.
TABLE TALKS
doMA
When you try the following
recipe — originally from Europe
— please remember that all
honey cakes require a few days
to ripen and it must also be
noted that in the final stages of
baking the oven temperaeure,
should be lowered because honey
cakes scorch very easily.
* * a
HONEY CAKE
1 cup honey
6 egg whites
1/ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar '
6 egg yolks
21i cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1A tsp. salt.
cup milk
Bring honey to a boil and then
cool it. Beat egg whites until
stiff.
In another bowl, cream butter
and sugar until light, add egg
yolks and beat until fluffy, add
honey and beat well.
Sift flour, soda, salt and cin-
namon twice and add to the mix-
ture alternately with the milk.
Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites
and pour into greased tube pan.
Bake. 45 minutes oven 350 F.
Reduce heat to 300 F. and bake
15 minutes longer.
Cool cake for a short while
before removing from pan. Let
ripen 24 hours or longer before
serving.
0 * M1
RHUBAIItB CHIFFON PIE
(field — about 8 servings)
1 cup quick -cooking rolled oats
1/z cup lightly packed brown
sugar
14 cup .butter, melted
14 cup cut-up flaked or
shredded coconut
31te cups chopped rhubarb
1/ cup water
ee cup granulated sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatine
1, pint (114 cups) whipping
cream
Preheae oven to 375 degrees -
(moderately hot).
Measure rolled oats into a shal-
low pan and place in preheated
oven to toast, 5 to 10 minutes.
Mix in brown sugar, melted
butter and coconut.
Pack crumble firmly into bot-
tom and sides of a pie plate (9
inches, top inside measure). Chill
until firm.
Prepare rhubarb and place in
in saucepan; add 1/4 cup of the
water and 4 cup of the granu-
lated sugar. •
Cover and cook until barely
tender — remoye 34 cup of the
rhubarb pieces.
Cook remaining fruit until
tender — 8 to 10 minutes longer.
Combine gelatine and the re-
maining 1/•4 cup water, add to
rhubarb and stir until gelatine
is dissolved. Cool until partial-
ly set.
Beat whipping cream until
stiff; •beat in the remaining 1
cup granulated sugar. Fold in
rhubarb mixture and turn into
prepared pie shell.
Garnish top of pie with the
saved -out partially cooked fruit.
Chill until set.
A *
POTATO SCONES
(Yield 16 triangular scones)
IA cup sour Bream
11/4 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Few grains ground mace
1/4 cup butter
1/a teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cold - mashed : potato
14 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 envelope active dry yeast
3 cups (about) once -sifted
all-purpose flour.
Scald sour cream; stir in salt,
the 2 tablespoons sugar, apace,
butter and baking soda.
Mash potato with a fork until
very smooth; gradually stir in
the sour creom mixture and cool
to lukewarm.
Meantime, measure lukewarm
water into a large bowl;, stir in
the 1 teaspoon sugar.
Sprinkle with yeast. Let stand
10 minutes, then stir well.
Stir in lukewarm sour cream
mixture and 134 cups of the
flour; beat until smooth and
elastic.
Stir in sufficient additional
flour to make a soft dough —
about 11/4 cups more.
Turn out on floured board or
canvas and knead until smooth
and elastic. Place in a greased
bowl. Grease top. Cover. Let
rise in a warm place, free from
draft, until doubled in bulk —
about 11/4 •hours. •
Punch clown dough. Turn out
on lightly floured board or can-
vas and knead until smooth.
Divide dough into 4 equal por-
tions. Roll out each portion into
a thin round, 9 inches .in diam-
eter; dust with flour.
Cut each round into 4 triangu-
lar scones.
Place, well apart, on lightly
floured cookie sheets. Cover. Let
rise in a warm place, free from
draft, until doubled in bulk —
about 45 minutes.
Bake in a moderately hot oven,
375 degrees, about 15 minutes.
Serve hot or reheated.
A finishing •school is a place
where girls who have any lin-
gering respect for their parents
go to have it removed. .
Studied Evenings
To Learn Forgery
COtmterfeiters are queer pee- ,,
ple. Melvin G, Parsons, a fifty-
seven -year-old foundry moulder,
of Missouri, laid on his own
"evening classes". He studied
engraving, inks and printing' at
a public library for hundreds of
evenings, then in three years.
forged $14,000 worth Of perfect
$10 bills, but gave 'them such
painstaking care and costly fin-
ishes that he barely met ex-
penses.
"I didn't make any money out
of it," he told a secret service
agent, "but like horse -racing it
gets in your blood, and I couldn't
get away from it." The agent
said: "He was trying to produce
better money than the Treasury
Department."
One U.S, counterfeiter was a
Roman Catholic who victimized
only priests -of his church. Pious,
penitent, he wandered around
the country offering $50 and
$100 bills for special prayers of
which, he said, he was in great
need.
The priests readily took his
notes and gave him change, and
the notes stayed in circulation
longer than usual because the
churches had no difficulty in
passing them!
One counterfeiter was a Lou-,
isiana justice of the peace who,
in 1908, set up an efficient plant
in an unused room of his court.
Culprits paying fines were lec-
tured sternly on eheir misdeeds
— and given counterfeit change!
In a fascinating account of
some of the world's most notori-
ous cases — "Money of Their
Own" — Murray Teigh Bloom
says that a few forgers do es-
cape despite a -U.S.-Secret Ser-
vice setimate that at least nine-
ty per cent. are. caught and
sentenced.
The half -rouble notes. of a
Russian gang, in 1912, were ex-
cellent reproductions, except
that on one side, in tiny charac-
ters, was this challenge to the
Tsar's treasury: "Our money is
no worse than yours."
A Milanese counterfeiter, in
1951, turned out fairly good U.S.
$10 notes, but in the usual
promise on the face, "Redeem-
able in lawful money," the en-
graver deliberately omitted the
first "1" from "lawful"!
The $100 notes of the Ramirez
brothers of Mexico were only
fair technically, and probably
wouldn't have passed any sober
bank cashier. They were in-
tended only for use by bootleg-
gers, to pay off suppliers beyond
ehe three-mile limit - and on
a pitching boat on a moonless
night they always passed. Later,
when they were found to be
fake, how could the supplier
complain, and to whom?
But in time some of the wiser
ones hired bank tellers for a
week -end's work at sea, check-
ing the pay-off money.
Marcus Crahan, a Providence,
U.S.; photo - engraver, disposed
of most of his home-made notes
at race tracks around the coun-
try. As soon as he reached a
city he put a personal notice in
a leading paper On these lines:
"Found in j7nion Station late
yesterday afternoon, a sum of
money in bank - notes, which
owner may have, after proving
property, by applying to X-13
this paper."
Thus, when he was eventually
caught, he could say he found.
the fake notes, instead of mak-
ing the Lane excuse that he got
them from bank or store. Once
or twice this succeeded, but the
third time it landed him a fif-
teen-yearsentence.
Edward Windeyer, ex -fisher-
man, ex - mechanic, ex - watch-
maker living in a suburb of Syd-
ney, Australia, made this do-it-
yourself confession recently;'
"L
thought I "Would have . a go at
making some E.10 notes: - 1 wd at
10 the library and to the book-=
shop and read about printing
and engraving for six months,
then I bought some ammonium
bichromate; gum arabic, pumice'
powder, 'some nitric acid, and
other things. I also got some
sheet zinc and tubes of water.
colours and some typing paper,
photographic film ," and, so
on.
IIe passed 350. of his notes at
night trotting races and grey-
hound meetings, and was dubbed
by the newspapers "Mr. One by
One" because he 'was careful
never to pass more than three
or four in a day.
To avoid having to carry the
notes about until he really need. -
ed them, he mailed himself let-
ters in the different cities he
visited. After he was caught and
given seven years' hard labour
in 1953, the detective inspector
on the case said:
"This man's work, developed
in a few months from an almost
complete lack of photography
knowledge, shows what can be
done if one has the determina-
tion."
Taxis Of Death
A New York taxi was recently
taking a man and a woman to
a police station. When the taxi
arrived, astonished 'police of-
ficers found both passengers
dead'. The man had a pistol and
a commando knife in his belt,
and a bullet in his head; the
woman, his wife, had died of
bullet wounds in the bead and
neck.
Another tragic tai was that
taken by a- woman to Beaehy
Head last autumn. On a rival
she told the driver to wait for
her, but she never came back.
They found her body on a ledge
500 feet below.
Remember the "Cleft Chin"
murder, when an American sol-
dier and a British woman, were
sentenced in January, 1945, for
murdering and robbing a London
taxi driver?
After they had been sentenced
and removed from court, the
judge eoid the jury that the
same pair had some time pre-
viously held up another taxi.
But on that occasion the pas-
senger was an American ofilcer
who promptly drew his revolver
and the couple fled.
FRIGHTENING- Cathren San a
Maria, a bigeared basset
hound, doesn't like the looks of
that hypodermic needle. An
antirabies drive brought out' the
dread instrument.
•
ISSUE 22 — 1958
Dates and Prunes Are Sure -Fire Dessert Hits
BY DOROTHY ..111A DOAK
Like dates and prunes in des-
serts? If you do, you'll enjoy
these two very good recipes.
Date -Brownie Pudding
(8-10 servings)
Three squares unsweetened
chocolate, 2 tablespoons shorten-
ing, 1 cup sifted flour, 2 tea-
spoons double-acting baking
'powder, 1 teaspoon salt, =7a cup
sugar, 21/2 cups milk, 1 teaspoon
,manilla, 'A cup chopped dates,
Ma cup chopped nut meats, 2
• cups water, PA cups sugar, 1
square unsweetened chocolate.
Melt 3 squares of chocolate
and shortening together, Cool.
Sift flour, measure, add baking
powder, salt, and :4 cup sugar
'and sift again, Add milk and
'vanilla.
Mix until smooth, Stir in
'cooled chocolate mixture, dates
.and nuts, Pour Into greased
'Ex8x2-inch pan Combine water,
11/4 CLIPS sugar and 1 square
chocolate in saucepan.
Place over medium heat and
stir until sugar is dissolved and
chocolate is' molted. Bring to a
boil. Pour over top of batter.
(This makes a chocolate sauce
in bottom of pan after pudding
SP baked) Bake in moderate
or en
(150 degrees 1,) 40 to 45
nnnuleo.
Cat.'arnia Vineyard Pie
(1 9 -inch pie)
One and ono -half cups cooked
ytrunes, 7,4 ,cup port or sherry
•
'Whipped cream tops this delicious date -brownie neddil
good?' .•t is, and easy to make„ too!
Wine or water, 1/4 cup orange
juice, 1 teaspoon grated orange
rind, 2 tablespoons lemon juice,
?tit cup prune cooking liquid, 34
cup sugar, 1 tablespoon butter
or margarine, 2 tablespoons
cornstarch, 2 tablespoons cold
water, pastry for 0 -inch crust
and strip top,
Pit prunes and cut in halves.
Arrange in a l.a,.ii,-lined pie
Look
pan; Combine wine, orange juice
and'' rind, lemon juice, prune;
liquid, sugar and butter and heat'
to boiling,
Add cornstarch mixed with
water and' cook and stir until'
mixture boils and is thick. Pour
'ever the prunes. Cover pie with'.
strips of pastry. Bake about '28
minutes in a hot oven (425 dee,
grecs L',),