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From Our Abecedarian Blog . . .
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Today's constellated umbrellas are from Basic Studies in Science by Wilbur Beauchamp, 1940.
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From Red Herring, April 1994.
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Meet you in Goobertown! From Youth's Companion, 1888.
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"Modern popery is ancient paganism." From Progressive Thinker, 1906.
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From State Female Normal School's 1901 yearbook.
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"Two men and a hat: a little gaiety." From The Children's Newspaper, 1938.
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From our review of Magnificent Milo, written and illustrated by Joan Balfour Payne (1958).
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The Pinkled Frinft, and other snippets from The Smart Set, 1917:
***[Shaw's play Getting Married] reminds one of a Wilde epigram rewritten by Dostoievsky. [Nathan]***Anyone can write a play but...it takes genius to sit through one. [Nathan; not sure if this quip is original to him]***all its winsome et ceteras [Nathan]***Miss Cather and Mrs. Watts have yet to strike twelve. [Mencken]***ideas rolled out like noodles [Mencken]***the grave and literal-minded critical whisker [Nathan]***Bonuses:Nathan uses "jabberwock" as a transitive verb (something a playwright does to the audience by entertaining them with playful nonsense).He also uses the adverb "Johnsonianly" (i.e., in the manner of Dr. Johnson).[And the same day I encountered that, I subsequently encountered the assertion, in an unrelated book from 1921, that Fanny Burney wrote "a kind of debased Johnsonese."]He describes a play called /The Basker/ as a "monocled dawdle"Notes on a couple of the attachments:1. Re. "more this anon": This sentence, article, and entire *issue* appear to break off in the middle of a word! Mencken is both the author and co-editor, so in a way he's self-empting. (And I note that I saw no evidence of the sentence or article picking up again in the subsequent issue.)2. I've included the tobacco ad simply because of its over-the-top off-topicness in confusing itself with a coffee ad. (I subsequently saw another one in the series, with some other fragrant non-tobacco substance featured.)
3. Apparently The Pinkled Frinft's title has a subtitle that reads, "Don't Wrinkle Your Nose When You Pronounce It."
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From St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing's 1942 yearbook.
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""In the vain pursuit of this and that endeavor and dispute" (Omar Khayyam). From Oberlin College's 1910 yearbook.
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From Purple Parrot, 1922.
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You've heard of life giving you lemons, and here's who tosses them. From James Millikin University's 1918 yearbook.
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From Improvement Era, 1962.
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His official yearbook portrait. From Mount Union College's 1982 yearbook.
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From (Stevens Institute of Technology's) Eccentric, 1874.
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