The Jeweller’s Window

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30763, 29 May 1965, Page 12

The Jeweller’s Window

Fly-Leaf Fun

(Specially written for “The Press” by ARNOLD WALL.) JUST as, according " to the French proverb, “a white wall is a fool’s paper,” so a blank fly-leaf is a temptation to idle youth. So we find that there is quite a long tradition behind the habit of utilising the empty space for more or less childish fun.

How old the habit Is I cannot tell but I have possessed books of the seventeenth century with copious writings on the fly-leaves, sometimes fun, sometimes useful notes. All fly-leaf writing is not mere fun, when writingpaper was scarce and dear the spare leaf was often used for memoranda of various kinds. I used to have an old French grammar published in 1620 whose large fly-leaves, both fore and aft, had been covered with the spidery writing of the owner. He had evidently been involved in the Civil War of 164249 and had made copious notes of instruction in cavalry tactics. There was some fun too. queer old proverbs about men of dark or fair colouring, which you could trust and which not. But that is not my main concern in these exhibits. For centuries children have scribbled bits of fun on the fly-leaves of their schoolbooks, many of them handed down from generation to generation and endlessly repeated. Thus, in Bullokar’s “English Exposition,” 4th edition, Cambridge, 1671, are the names of successive owners on both front and back flyleaves. On the back fly-leaf we have:

Elizabeth Wilkins is my name And with my pen I write the same And if my pen it had been better I would have mended every letter.

This was written in 1733. Another of my old books has this favourite old inscription. Mary Williams is my name England is my nation London is my dwelling-place And Christ is my salvation

Fashionable in my own youth was: Black is the raven, black is the

rook, Blacker is the boy who steals this book.

An oft-repeated bit of school-boy “humour” is the writing of the owner’s address —school, town or village, county, country continent, “World,” “Universe.” A truly noble fly-leaf script was on the back leaf of my copy of Stow’s “Survey of London and Westminster” published 1598. My copy was of a later edition, 1618. On the back leaf there was a beautifully-written complete copy of the deed by which the famous Sir Walter Manny presented to Charterhouse School the land in London upon which it was built in 1371. The deed was, of course, written in Latin and it exactly filled the leaf.

the script, after more than 300 years, is perfectly legible and as fine an example of the art of penmanship as I have ever seen.

After my retirement 1 offer-

ed the book to the present-day Charterhouse School and it was gladly accepted. This is a digression, not fly-leaf fun.

Running Amuck

Also “amok" and “amock," adjective and adverb, introduced in 1663. At first it was a noun "a frenzied Malay,” then an adverb “to run amuck.” 1672, now usually in that form only. “Too discreet to run amuck” and Dryden, “Runs an Indian muck.” , . „

The Malay word is “amo<r” but, as seen above, the early writers detached the “a" and made it an article. Something odd has happened to the word. In the late 19th century—l can’t be more precise—adopted in the newswas corrected to "amok" and this form was for many years —again I can’t be more precise—adopted in the Newspapers. But recently, perhaps within the last 20 years, the naughty old “ammuck" has come back and that is, how 1 most generally see it, not without a shock. Is it because the English are so staid and law-abiding a people that they had recourse to foreign languages to express the idea of a frenzied, murderous condition? For “amok" is not the only term in use to describe it.

Since 1882 we have adopted the Icelandic term “berserk” with this exact meaning, “to. go berserk.” The Old Norse form is “berserkr.” In the Icelandic sagas men are often said to go “berserkr" and “to chew iron.” The etymology of this word it not quite clear. The “serkr” is certainly the old word for a shirt, the Scots “sark,” The "ber” is probably “bear” and the term would mean “bearskin.” The Old Norse had also “ulfhethim,” “wolf-doublet." with a similar sense. So the idea was that the madman took on the character of a savage wild beast, bear or wolf. Both “amuck” and “berserk” (stressed on “serk”) are now in common use and the good journalist can take his choice. Brevity A paragraph headed "Brevity” printed in “The Press” on March 17 tells of a "record” Chamber of Commons meeting in Fiji when the presidential address consisted of only 11 words. I recall a “brevity” story told me some years ago which, like the last one, also comes from Fiji. It provided. I thought, an admirable example of “Anglo-Saxon” pithiness and economy of expression. A proposal to put a fence round the very ornamental cemetery in Suva was debated in the local Council. After much expenditure of time and oratory one speaker summed up the argument and ended the controversy thus: “those who are in can’t get out, those who are out don’t want to get in so why should we have a fence? More than 11 words, it is true, but none of them wasted.

Another example is an answer made by, I think, President Harding when asked, on his return from a church service, what the preacher's subject had been. He said: “Sin.” “And what did he say about sin?” The President said, “He’s agin it.”