Does Slow Johnny still pull the wings off flies

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:32:07 p.m. UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 22:52:33 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:59:40 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/10/2021 5:56 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:08:51 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 11:51 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 6:52:50 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 1:24:51 AM UTC, wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 4:59:53 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
Returning for just a moment to the depressing subject of
Slow Johnny, one wonders whether he had looked up on
Wikipedia what pulling the wings off flies says about his
mentality.
So what did you discover, Slow Johnny?
Between Slow Johnny and Wikipedia, neither seems to know what
a pen knife is. Wikipedia thinks that it is a Swiss Army
Knife and Slow Johnny thinks that it has something to so with
a cartoon character of some sort.
I have to make do with Swiss Army knives -- I have two sizes
on my desk for various artistic purposes and another in my
pocket to sharpen pencils and pigment-wax bars to paint
with. The best pocket knives were made by Joseph Rodgers of
Sheffield, but I gave my last one to a dear friend who wanted
to give it a gracious retirement in his collection: it had
served me faithfully for over 60 years. I thought seriously of
asking one of the bicycle frame braziers who still have an
open hearth to hammer me a blade, but then, under the
influence of my knowledgable friend decided what was left of
the blade should stay on the knife. So much of what is now
sold as Swiss Army knives, regrettably, are so much dinky
trash for the tourist trade; I have three with broken plastic
grips in a box in a drawer for spare part, none of them even
ten years old. At least the blades are still okay, even if
they aren't the outstanding steel edges you could get within
living memory. -- AJ
Originally at our school we still have inkwells in our desks
and it wasn't unusual to cut your own ink pen with a pen knife
that appears to be what we call an Exacto-knife these
days. Turkey tail feathers were the best to practice
script. And the continuous dipping into ink supplied the delay
to allow very careful practice. After the advent of the ball
point pen and entry into middle management I completely lost my
hand for script. I can barely write my own signature now but I
think that has to do with the concussion damage,

???

I knew George S Parker III, whose family had made steel nibs
so cheaply that by the 1920s quills were mostly gone in USA.

Inkwells, yes. Quills no.

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common around
here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have to remember
that this was shortly after the war and no one had any money and
this area has always been sick with wild turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg


That is what I used in first years in primary school (1963-1967). I
convinced that it improves your handwriting. Up to now I still
prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.

In my first years in elementary school - um, much earlier! - the teacher
once gave me some sort of special pencil hoping it would improve my
handwriting. As I recall, it had sort of molded-in pockets for my
fingertips.

It failed. Or at least, my handwriting failed to improve.

The irony is that I later became quite competent at calligraphy and (in
the days of manual drafting) technical lettering. But my ordinary
handwriting is still pretty atrocious by legibility standards.

(Tom has some very strange "memories.")

I remember "calligraphy" being taught in school. "Penmanship" I think
I remember it being called. I had some sort of distant cousin, or
whatever, that was an "old maid school teacher" and wrote the most
beautiful hand, copper plate, I think it was called. It was almost a
pleasure to carry a note home to my mother saying "John doesn't try
hard enough".

My wife works with college students. She assures me that one can't rely
on their being able to *read* cursive handwriting, much less produce it.
Well, most of the news services produce moving picture shows to
portray the news so it is my guess that the "great unwashed" probably
do have problems in reading, or perhaps comprehending what they read
:-)
I'll always remember the notice posted on all 5th Air Force bulletin
Boards in Japan that ordered that:
"U.S. Air Force personnel shall not cohabitant with indigenous
females", and the guy standing next to me asked me to translate it :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

Rather than 'cohabitant', shouldn't the word used have been 'cohabitate'?

Cheers

On 1/10/2021 9:11 PM, Ted Heise wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:49:13 -0600,
AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:59 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:56 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common
around here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have
to remember that this was shortly after the war and no one
had any money and this area has always been sick with wild
turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg

That is what I used in first years in primary school
(1963-1967). I convinced that it improves your handwriting.
Up to now I still prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.

In my first years in elementary school - um, much earlier! -
the teacher once gave me some sort of special pencil hoping it
would improve my handwriting. As I recall, it had sort of
molded-in pockets for my fingertips.

It failed. Or at least, my handwriting failed to improve.

The irony is that I later became quite competent at
calligraphy and (in the days of manual drafting) technical
lettering. But my ordinary handwriting is still pretty
atrocious by legibility standards.

I remember those. The children made to use them hated the
damned things.

Don't know about pencils, but I was forced to use a pen like for a
year or so...

https://shop.zaner-bloser.com/shop/p...er-classic-pen

As for Frank, it made no difference in my penmanship. As soon as
I could, I went to writing everything except my signature in block
letters.

One young-ish man I know got his first degree in journalism, his second
in law. He insists that a journalism professor urged him to develop an
illegible handwriting style, to aid in keeping interview notes
confidential.

And it worked. His handwriting is so difficult that reading what he
writes in my birthday card is like code breaking.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 2:56:27 PM UTC-8, wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:08:51 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 11:51 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 6:52:50 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 1:24:51 AM UTC, wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 4:59:53 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
Returning for just a moment to the depressing subject of Slow Johnny, one wonders whether he had looked up on Wikipedia what pulling the wings off flies says about his mentality.
So what did you discover, Slow Johnny?
Between Slow Johnny and Wikipedia, neither seems to know what a pen knife is. Wikipedia thinks that it is a Swiss Army Knife and Slow Johnny thinks that it has something to so with a cartoon character of some sort.
I have to make do with Swiss Army knives -- I have two sizes on my desk for various artistic purposes and another in my pocket to sharpen pencils and pigment-wax bars to paint with. The best pocket knives were made by Joseph Rodgers of Sheffield, but I gave my last one to a dear friend who wanted to give it a gracious retirement in his collection: it had served me faithfully for over 60 years. I thought seriously of asking one of the bicycle frame braziers who still have an open hearth to hammer me a blade, but then, under the influence of my knowledgable friend decided what was left of the blade should stay on the knife. So much of what is now sold as Swiss Army knives, regrettably, are so much dinky trash for the tourist trade; I have three with broken plastic grips in a box in a drawer for spare part, none of them even ten years old. At least the blades are still okay, even if they aren't the outstanding steel edges you could get within living memory. -- AJ
Originally at our school we still have inkwells in our desks and it wasn't unusual to cut your own ink pen with a pen knife that appears to be what we call an Exacto-knife these days. Turkey tail feathers were the best to practice script. And the continuous dipping into ink supplied the delay to allow very careful practice. After the advent of the ball point pen and entry into middle management I completely lost my hand for script. I can barely write my own signature now but I think that has to do with the concussion damage,

???

I knew George S Parker III, whose family had made steel nibs
so cheaply that by the 1920s quills were mostly gone in USA.

Inkwells, yes. Quills no.

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common around here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have to remember that this was shortly after the war and no one had any money and this area has always been sick with wild turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg

That is what I used in first years in primary school (1963-1967). I convinced that it improves your handwriting. Up to now I still prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.
A perusal of period classroom photos shows many examples,
Yes that was the classic classroom photo pose.
postwar through end of 1950s, but can't find a single
instance of turkey feathers.
Turkey or goose feathers? That was something of the 17th century over here.

What did Germany look like post-WW II? Here in Oakland, during the war it was reasonably prosperous with the ship building and steel mills but that was abruptly terminated with the end of the war and people went from what they considered well-to-so after the Great Depression to being absolutely poor.. The unions still hadn't come in and forced a living wage upon employers who themselves were going from government contracts to bankruptcy court on the order of one a day.

How the hell would I even have known about quill pens had I not used them? But photos of the more prosperous ends of town where children were far more likely to be portrayed somehow are issued as the world around us. ALL of the factories are still broken down and rusting away as the proof of what it was like almost immediately after the war ended. Just imagine what the bay area was like going from building one large freighter each day to nothing at all overnight.

What we need more of is people that didn't experience this to tell us that "it ain't so". Sure, this didn't last for long. But it did exist.

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 8:50:57 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
I wrote with a swan quill at school, illuminating T S Eliot's Macavity Cat. After I'd been at college a few years, my mother returned a handwritten letter to me: "You handwriting is worse than my doctor's. Use a typewriter." That same week my girl friend sold the illuminated manuscript to a Japanese industrialist for enough money to outfit a new racing team. I can't remember the amount -- I have people to bother their heads about amounts -- but I remember someone says it was twice what a supreme court justice earned in a year. I've never since felt hard done by about my everyday handwriting being too bad even for me to read.

I have a swan quill in a pot on my side table right now, half a century later, for a project for which the ink is already standing in a wooden case against the wall and the vellum has been laid in and acclimatised.
.
I don't know what it is with you people, this sick compulsion to gainsay everything Tom says. You're giving the entire newsgroup over to your disease. Soon I'll have to stand up with Rideablot and agree with him that you trolls must go.
.
Andre Jute
"Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw— For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law. He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair: For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity's not there! Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity." -- T S Eliot
Since I was just learning to write, the thing I remember most about a quill was that I would press too hard and break the tip. Then the teacher would have to either recut the end or make a new one.

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:28:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:

The smaller Swiss Army knives lack a blade suitable for opening
cardboard boxes, cutting thick cordage, stripping wire, and opening
theft proof packaging. So, I gave up on multiplex knives and switched
to something more practical:
https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Hand-Tools/Cutting/48-22-1530

Quite so, so telephone installation people used special hardened and sharpened scissors for cutting phone wire and on the back edge it has a slot for stripping the wire. For cutting carboard boxed and their wrapping the only tool to use was a razor knife.
https://www.amazon.com/Electrician-S...0385913&sr=8-5

https://www.amazon.com/Internets-Bes...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 11:27:24 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/10/2021 9:11 PM, Ted Heise wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:49:13 -0600,
AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:59 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:56 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common
around here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have
to remember that this was shortly after the war and no one
had any money and this area has always been sick with wild
turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg

That is what I used in first years in primary school
(1963-1967). I convinced that it improves your handwriting.
Up to now I still prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.

In my first years in elementary school - um, much earlier! -
the teacher once gave me some sort of special pencil hoping it
would improve my handwriting. As I recall, it had sort of
molded-in pockets for my fingertips.

It failed. Or at least, my handwriting failed to improve.

The irony is that I later became quite competent at
calligraphy and (in the days of manual drafting) technical
lettering. But my ordinary handwriting is still pretty
atrocious by legibility standards.

I remember those. The children made to use them hated the
damned things.

Don't know about pencils, but I was forced to use a pen like for a
year or so...

https://shop.zaner-bloser.com/shop/p...er-classic-pen

As for Frank, it made no difference in my penmanship. As soon as
I could, I went to writing everything except my signature in block
letters.

Same here. I had a drafting class in elementary skool. It was just
after Sputnik launched in 1957 and the country went into Red Scare
mode. We needed more scientists and engineers to beat the evil
Russians. Teaching drafting quite early was considered to be
important. So, there I was, about 10 years old, trying to print
legibly in tiny letters. After that failed, I was introduced to a
lettering guide, which was a huge help. It was slow but it worked
tolerably well with a pencil. Then, I was taught to use a pen. One
drop of ink under the scale, lettering guide, or circle template, and
a giant non-erasable ink blob would appear on the vellum paper. I
used stick-on elevating spacers under all my scales and templates. The
only lasting effect of all this was that my normal handwriting now
resembles drafting lettering and that I rarely write in script.

Various templates:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/PCB-Layout/slides/templates-01.html
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jef...plates-02.html

One young-ish man I know got his first degree in journalism, his second
in law. He insists that a journalism professor urged him to develop an
illegible handwriting style, to aid in keeping interview notes
confidential.

And it worked. His handwriting is so difficult that reading what he
writes in my birthday card is like code breaking.

I suspect that the schools give the same advice to doctors. I can't
decode any of the writing produced by various doctors. That's
probably why medical transcription is still popular. During my last
visit to a local hospital, I noticed that the nurses stations had been
modified to include a row of computers which was used by everyone for
data entry. I joked with one nurse that this was because nobody could
read the doctors handwriting. She agreed.

Among architects, the use of custom fonts is quite common. The idea
is that if someone pirates the architects work, the unique fonts would
make the theft obvious in a court of law. In the distant past, we had
three architects offices in the office building. All of them used
custom fonts. I don't know if they still do that today.


--
Jeff Liebermann
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 1/11/2021 1:21 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 11:27:24 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/10/2021 9:11 PM, Ted Heise wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:49:13 -0600,
AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:59 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/10/2021 5:56 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common
around here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have
to remember that this was shortly after the war and no one
had any money and this area has always been sick with wild
turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg

That is what I used in first years in primary school
(1963-1967). I convinced that it improves your handwriting.
Up to now I still prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.

In my first years in elementary school - um, much earlier! -
the teacher once gave me some sort of special pencil hoping it
would improve my handwriting. As I recall, it had sort of
molded-in pockets for my fingertips.

It failed. Or at least, my handwriting failed to improve.

The irony is that I later became quite competent at
calligraphy and (in the days of manual drafting) technical
lettering. But my ordinary handwriting is still pretty
atrocious by legibility standards.

I remember those. The children made to use them hated the
damned things.

Don't know about pencils, but I was forced to use a pen like for a
year or so...

https://shop.zaner-bloser.com/shop/p...er-classic-pen

As for Frank, it made no difference in my penmanship. As soon as
I could, I went to writing everything except my signature in block
letters.

Same here. I had a drafting class in elementary skool. It was just
after Sputnik launched in 1957 and the country went into Red Scare
mode. We needed more scientists and engineers to beat the evil
Russians. Teaching drafting quite early was considered to be
important. So, there I was, about 10 years old, trying to print
legibly in tiny letters. After that failed, I was introduced to a
lettering guide, which was a huge help. It was slow but it worked
tolerably well with a pencil. Then, I was taught to use a pen. One
drop of ink under the scale, lettering guide, or circle template, and
a giant non-erasable ink blob would appear on the vellum paper. I
used stick-on elevating spacers under all my scales and templates. The
only lasting effect of all this was that my normal handwriting now
resembles drafting lettering and that I rarely write in script.

Various templates:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/PCB-Layout/slides/templates-01.html
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jef...plates-02.html

One young-ish man I know got his first degree in journalism, his second
in law. He insists that a journalism professor urged him to develop an
illegible handwriting style, to aid in keeping interview notes
confidential.

And it worked. His handwriting is so difficult that reading what he
writes in my birthday card is like code breaking.

I suspect that the schools give the same advice to doctors. I can't
decode any of the writing produced by various doctors. That's
probably why medical transcription is still popular. During my last
visit to a local hospital, I noticed that the nurses stations had been
modified to include a row of computers which was used by everyone for
data entry. I joked with one nurse that this was because nobody could
read the doctors handwriting. She agreed.

Among architects, the use of custom fonts is quite common. The idea
is that if someone pirates the architects work, the unique fonts would
make the theft obvious in a court of law. In the distant past, we had
three architects offices in the office building. All of them used
custom fonts. I don't know if they still do that today.



Right, I had my all-caps scrawl digitized as a TrueType
font. Probably something like that.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 09:12:35 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 2:56:27 PM UTC-8, wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:08:51 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 11:51 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 6:52:50 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 1:24:51 AM UTC, wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 4:59:53 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
Returning for just a moment to the depressing subject of Slow Johnny, one wonders whether he had looked up on Wikipedia what pulling the wings off flies says about his mentality.
So what did you discover, Slow Johnny?
Between Slow Johnny and Wikipedia, neither seems to know what a pen knife is. Wikipedia thinks that it is a Swiss Army Knife and Slow Johnny thinks that it has something to so with a cartoon character of some sort.
I have to make do with Swiss Army knives -- I have two sizes on my desk for various artistic purposes and another in my pocket to sharpen pencils and pigment-wax bars to paint with. The best pocket knives were made by Joseph Rodgers of Sheffield, but I gave my last one to a dear friend who wanted to give it a gracious retirement in his collection: it had served me faithfully for over 60 years. I thought seriously of asking one of the bicycle frame braziers who still have an open hearth to hammer me a blade, but then, under the influence of my knowledgable friend decided what was left of the blade should stay on the knife. So much of what is now sold as Swiss Army knives, regrettably, are so much dinky trash for the tourist trade; I have three with broken plastic grips in a box in a drawer for spare part, none of them even ten years old. At least the blades are still okay, even if they aren't the outstanding steel edges you could get within living memory. -- AJ
Originally at our school we still have inkwells in our desks and it wasn't unusual to cut your own ink pen with a pen knife that appears to be what we call an Exacto-knife these days. Turkey tail feathers were the best to practice script. And the continuous dipping into ink supplied the delay to allow very careful practice. After the advent of the ball point pen and entry into middle management I completely lost my hand for script. I can barely write my own signature now but I think that has to do with the concussion damage,

???

I knew George S Parker III, whose family had made steel nibs
so cheaply that by the 1920s quills were mostly gone in USA.

Inkwells, yes. Quills no.

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common around here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have to remember that this was shortly after the war and no one had any money and this area has always been sick with wild turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg

That is what I used in first years in primary school (1963-1967). I convinced that it improves your handwriting. Up to now I still prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.
A perusal of period classroom photos shows many examples,
Yes that was the classic classroom photo pose.
postwar through end of 1950s, but can't find a single
instance of turkey feathers.
Turkey or goose feathers? That was something of the 17th century over here.

What did Germany look like post-WW II? Here in Oakland, during the war it was reasonably prosperous with the ship building and steel mills but that was abruptly terminated with the end of the war and people went from what they considered well-to-so after the Great Depression to being absolutely poor. The unions still hadn't come in and forced a living wage upon employers who themselves were going from government contracts to bankruptcy court on the order of one a day.

How the hell would I even have known about quill pens had I not used them? But photos of the more prosperous ends of town where children were far more likely to be portrayed somehow are issued as the world around us. ALL of the factories are still broken down and rusting away as the proof of what it was like almost immediately after the war ended. Just imagine what the bay area was like going from building one large freighter each day to nothing at all overnight.

What we need more of is people that didn't experience this to tell us that "it ain't so". Sure, this didn't last for long. But it did exist.

Gee but California (the land of the fruits and nuts, I've heard it
describes as) must have been a truly horrible place to live. Tommy
reminiscing about the late 1940's and early 1950's and the state so
poor that the students had to run around catching turkeys in order to
have a writing utensil.

In contract I grew up in a little New England village and was in
school way back in1938 and graduated high school in 1950 and I
distinctly remember that the school furnished "writing sticks" even in
the 1st grade. Free too.

Or perhaps Tommy boy just has a rather vivid imagination?

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 06:04:12 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:32:07 p.m. UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 22:52:33 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:59:40 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/10/2021 5:56 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op zondag 10 januari 2021 om 21:34:46 UTC+1 schreef AMuzi:
On 1/10/2021 1:35 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:08:51 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/10/2021 11:51 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 6:52:50 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 1:24:51 AM UTC, wrote:
On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 4:59:53 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
Returning for just a moment to the depressing subject of
Slow Johnny, one wonders whether he had looked up on
Wikipedia what pulling the wings off flies says about his
mentality.
So what did you discover, Slow Johnny?
Between Slow Johnny and Wikipedia, neither seems to know what
a pen knife is. Wikipedia thinks that it is a Swiss Army
Knife and Slow Johnny thinks that it has something to so with
a cartoon character of some sort.
I have to make do with Swiss Army knives -- I have two sizes
on my desk for various artistic purposes and another in my
pocket to sharpen pencils and pigment-wax bars to paint
with. The best pocket knives were made by Joseph Rodgers of
Sheffield, but I gave my last one to a dear friend who wanted
to give it a gracious retirement in his collection: it had
served me faithfully for over 60 years. I thought seriously of
asking one of the bicycle frame braziers who still have an
open hearth to hammer me a blade, but then, under the
influence of my knowledgable friend decided what was left of
the blade should stay on the knife. So much of what is now
sold as Swiss Army knives, regrettably, are so much dinky
trash for the tourist trade; I have three with broken plastic
grips in a box in a drawer for spare part, none of them even
ten years old. At least the blades are still okay, even if
they aren't the outstanding steel edges you could get within
living memory. -- AJ
Originally at our school we still have inkwells in our desks
and it wasn't unusual to cut your own ink pen with a pen knife
that appears to be what we call an Exacto-knife these
days. Turkey tail feathers were the best to practice
script. And the continuous dipping into ink supplied the delay
to allow very careful practice. After the advent of the ball
point pen and entry into middle management I completely lost my
hand for script. I can barely write my own signature now but I
think that has to do with the concussion damage,

???

I knew George S Parker III, whose family had made steel nibs
so cheaply that by the 1920s quills were mostly gone in USA.

Inkwells, yes. Quills no.

I remember those self inking pens. But it was still common around
here to use quills and open inkwells. But you have to remember
that this was shortly after the war and no one had any money and
this area has always been sick with wild turkeys.

School pens (simple steel nib, not self-inking):

https://i.etsystatic.com/8303844/r/i...10711_bm72.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/2a...0edd9e5e0c.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zbYAA...kzd/s-l300.jpg


That is what I used in first years in primary school (1963-1967). I
convinced that it improves your handwriting. Up to now I still
prefer a fountain pen or just a pencil.

In my first years in elementary school - um, much earlier! - the teacher
once gave me some sort of special pencil hoping it would improve my
handwriting. As I recall, it had sort of molded-in pockets for my
fingertips.

It failed. Or at least, my handwriting failed to improve.

The irony is that I later became quite competent at calligraphy and (in
the days of manual drafting) technical lettering. But my ordinary
handwriting is still pretty atrocious by legibility standards.

(Tom has some very strange "memories.")

I remember "calligraphy" being taught in school. "Penmanship" I think
I remember it being called. I had some sort of distant cousin, or
whatever, that was an "old maid school teacher" and wrote the most
beautiful hand, copper plate, I think it was called. It was almost a
pleasure to carry a note home to my mother saying "John doesn't try
hard enough".

My wife works with college students. She assures me that one can't rely
on their being able to *read* cursive handwriting, much less produce it.
Well, most of the news services produce moving picture shows to
portray the news so it is my guess that the "great unwashed" probably
do have problems in reading, or perhaps comprehending what they read
:-)
I'll always remember the notice posted on all 5th Air Force bulletin
Boards in Japan that ordered that:
"U.S. Air Force personnel shall not cohabitant with indigenous
females", and the guy standing next to me asked me to translate it :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

Rather than 'cohabitant', shouldn't the word used have been 'cohabitate'?

Cheers

And the general may well have. Remember I was reciting this from the
memory of a notice I read, probably, 65 years ago :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 15:19:35 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

On 1/11/2021 1:21 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Among architects, the use of custom fonts is quite common. The idea
is that if someone pirates the architects work, the unique fonts would
make the theft obvious in a court of law. In the distant past, we had
three architects offices in the office building. All of them used
custom fonts. I don't know if they still do that today.

Right, I had my all-caps scrawl digitized as a TrueType
font. Probably something like that.

Sorry, but your scribbling has probably been copyrighted:
https://www.1001fonts.com/illegible-fonts.html
https://www.fontget.com/discover/illegible/
https://www.myfonts.com/tags/illegible
etc...

My favorite font is "Faux Hebrew". Sending formatted email or letters
to my Jewish friends often results in confusion (followed by
profanity):
https://www.google.com/search?q=faux+hebrew+font&tbm=isch

The ultimate in penmanship are the torah scribes. They transcribe the
entire 304,805 word Torah with pen and ink by hand. It takes about 2
years. No corrections are allowed. One mistake and the scrolls are
destroyed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Torah
It's quite an art and takes many years of practice to achieve
perfection. A new torah scroll will cost between $15,000 and $50,000
depending mostly on the quality and consistency of the script:
https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Kosher-Written-Scroll-Reconditioned/dp/B003AT9RKM
One of my uncles was a draftsman in Israel back in the 1960's. He
augmented his income transcribing torah scrolls.




--
Jeff Liebermann
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558