Letters, Jun. 2, 1941

“Meseg to hh Yf”

Sirs:

George Bernard Shaw’s complaints of the inadequacies of the English alphabet and the consequent troubles we have in spelling [TIME, May 12] brings to mind a similar criticism made by a noted American writer and wit more than 150 years ago. Writing to his sister in 1786 he remarks:

“You need not be concern’d, in writing to me, about your bad Spelling; for, in my Opinion as our Alphabet now Stands, the bad Spelling, or what is call’d so, is generally the best, as conforming to the Sound of the Letters and of the Words. To give you an Instance: A Gentleman receiving a Letter, in which were these Words,—Not finding Brown at horn, I delivard your meseg to his yf. The Gentleman finding it bad Spelling, and therefore not very intelligible, called his Lady to help him read it. Between them they pick’d out the meaning of all but the yf, which they could not understand. The Lady propos’d calling her Chambermaid: for Betty, says she, has the best knack at reading bad Spelling of any one I know. Betty came, and was surprised, that neither Sir nor Madam could tell what yf was. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘y f spells Wife; what else can it spell?’ And, indeed, it is a much better, as well as shorter method of spelling Wife, than by doubleyou, i, ef, e, which in reality spells doubleyifey. . . .

Adieu, your affectionate Brother B. Franklin”

This will afford little consolation to Mr. Shaw, except to assure him that he is in distinguished company.

HOWARD PECKHAM

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Cerebral Blackout

Sirs:

Our Congressmen who are “conditioned” with the exploded idea that neutral and isolated nations are safe, seem to have the cerebral cells in their thinking organ blacked out. These men seize upon Rear Admiral Land’s statement that only eight ships were “reported” to be lost that sailed from American ports, distort the true significance of the words and argue that there is no need to requisition ships for aid to Britain.

Would Americans who respond sympathetically to such intellectual conclusions approve of their medical adviser if he diagnosed an incipient tuberculosis or the early start of a malignant growth and advised: “So long as you are able to hold on to your job, there is no need for you to worry. When you become totally incapacitated give me a ring and I’ll see what I can do to alleviate your suffering in the last fatal stage of your illness.” . . .

EMMA WHEAT GILLMORE

New York City

Sirs:

Stimson asks convoys!

By this time it must have become apparent to everyone that we also have here in America a breed of warlords. . . .

The Lend-Lease Act was our Munich. Is the convoy plan to be our Poland?

L. A. KOEHLER

Rockport, Wash.

Sirs:

. . . Does Mr. Roosevelt really “hate wah” enough to keep us out of this one? . . .

MR. & MRS. R. V. CRAWFORD

San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

As Churchill said: “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” The plain fact is that making the tools is only half the job. . . .

Precious supplies of tin, rubber, aluminum at the bottom of the ocean would leave us in a pretty position to follow Teddy Roosevelt’s advice: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We will speak softly all right if we permit Britain to go down, but Adolf will carry the big stick.

FRANCES RODDER

Plymouth, Calif.

Sirs:

The last couple issues of your magazine having in their contents much larger doses of anti-British sentiment as spouted by such Naziphiles as Lindbergh, Wheeler, et al., it would appear that you are doing your bit to encourage their yellow aims and ideas. . . .

J. C. PERRY

Bourlamaque, Que.

Sirs:

May I congratulate you on your very fair and unbiased articles on the war now raging ? I think I speak for the average Canadian when I say we do not want war, but neither do we want Hitlerism. . . .

H. A. PLANCHE

London, Ont.

Toes in Peril

Sirs:

I thought you would be interested to know how oldfashioned is one of your leading isolationists, General Robert Elkington Wood. When he comes up to Canada hunting big game he uses an old Krag rifle which puts his toes in great danger, also high-flying birds when he is shooting at deer or sheep. If your other leading men are as up-&-coming as General Wood, God help America in this high-speed age.

F. N. GLADISH, Guide, Trail

Cook, Horse Wrangler

Tete Jaune, B.C.

German Technique

Sirs: Bill Foran, reconnaissance geologist for Standard Oil of New Jersey, bobbed up the other night after four years in Iraq. . . .

Foran told how the Germans, posing as archeologists in Iran, have been inciting murder and destruction against the English for years.

Told how the Arabs are bribed to go along the pipeline, dig a hole, build a fire and when the pipe gets hot, shoot a hole. The geyser of oil catches fire. The British-French-American oil people have airport and hospital stockades every 60 miles — send out repair men by airplane and fix the fire hole within two or three hours. Bill cruised every foot of Iraq with a Kurdish interpreter and 16 Arabs—got interested in Biblical lore, measured the marks left by Noah’s flood, reconstructed the story of the ark. Says Noah was a pitch dealer—built the ark to carry pitch to Babylon just as the Arabs do today.

PETER STOWE

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Paranoia & Bad Gin

Sirs: After reading your pidgin English version of Mose Simms’s departure from St. Mary’s University [TIME, April 28], I want to protest the wisecrack made in the first paragraph of your story, which was apparently written after a night of struggles with paranoia and bad gin.

I am one of the Catholics whom you claim go to St. Mary’s because we can’t afford to go to a larger and better University. . . . We picked St. Mary’s because we wanted to go there. . . . We like the place.

What do you mean—we couldn’t have gone to a larger University? Have you ever heard of oil wells? Well, we’ve got them; and you know what that means. Anyway, you should know. It means yachts. . . . The orange juice from our orange groves is in everyone’s mouth. . . Which all means that we could have gone to larger universities. But why should we? . . .

JOHN LAZANO

Editor

The Rattler

St. Mary’s University

San Antonio, Tex.

Sirs :

. . . I do know that St. Mary’s is doing a good job of educating at least one “dam-yankee” from Belleville, Ill., who couldn’t imagine going to a “larger or better college.”

You may be interested in knowing me ES the person Mose Simms alluded to last autumn when he boasted “only one paying customer” on his football team. You see, I had the gall to come to St. Mary’s without ever having heard of Mose Simms, and reported for football practice out of that little thing known as school spirit.

I assure you, gentlemen, that football under Mose Simms was a farce rather than a game. Now that he’s gone I wouldn’t mind playing football for St. Mary’s (it’s really a great place) for three-quarters of a century. And do you know, under Mose’s eligibility rules, that would have been possible !

ARTHUR I. FOURNIE

San Antonio, Tex.

Man with a Knack

Sirs:

TIME, May 5 : “General Smith Does a Job ” Interesting reading for a Marine buck private under General Butler during the first World War.

The story is not complete. A job well done and Brigadier General Smith becomes Major General Smith. What happened to the first-class private who, not even dignified by name, “just had a hell of a knack for buildin-things”?

C. K. BAILER

Minneapolis, Minn.

¶ The private who turned out to be a construction genius on the Guantanamo housing job is named Albert Williamson. He is 25, has been in the Marine Corps for six years, hails from Matthews, N.C. He is a corporal now, is stationed at Parris Island, S.C. He was not eager for publicity, fearing his barrack mates would rib him. TIME earnestly hopes they will not. — ED.

Work in France

Sirs:

. . . May I direct your attention to an error in TIME, March 10, in the story about the situation in France. . . . TIME . . . stated: “Most of this relief is distributed through The American Friends Service Committee, which is the only organization with representatives in France. . . .”

The fact is that the very worthy American Friends Service Committee, while it has unquestionably been doing valuable work, is by no means the only organization with representatives in France. While I am not qualified to speak on behalf of [other] organizations . . . I can inform you that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which conducts large-scale relief operations in both Occupied and Unoccupied France, has representatives throughout those territories under the direction of American citizens. . . .

At the present time the J.D.C. is spending thousands of dollars monthly for relief, care of refugees and emigration. It maintains six soup kitchens in Paris, which feed 5,000 persons daily. . . .

EDWARD M. M. WARBURG

New York City

¶ TIME overlooked the J.D.C.’s energetic work in France, is glad to set the record straight. — ED.