By the Way

Evening Star, Issue 22975, 4 June 1938, Page 3

By the Way

(By Y.Z.)

An old version of the Bible made a certain verse of the 119th Psalm read: “ Printers have persecuted me without a cause.” Sometimes, however, the boot is on the other foot, so to speak, and printers are persecuted by persons with spidery handwriting. All this is to absolve the staff of the ‘ Evening Stjn- ’ for ' printing “ Pius XL” instead of “ Pius IX.” (Pio Notio), in last Saturday’s ‘ By the Way,’ and making “ tremble ” rhyme with “ Malcolm Campbell ” instead of “ amble ”as intended. But. thinking of printers, I am reminded of a priceless piece of work once achieved by an Auckland paper in reporting a farewell presentation given to a wellknown police officer on his retirement. The report read: ‘‘Mr * So-and so,’ who has, for the past (we will say) 20 years, been a popular and valued member of the defective force.” A protest was lodged; of course—it would be. So next morning the newspaper came out with an apology, “In the report of the presentation to Mr So-and-so. the words ‘ defective force ’ were inadvertently used. This should; of course, have read ‘detective farce.’”

There arc some subjects upon which men of perverse minds will always dispute, like the folk in ‘ Gulliver’s Travels,’ who began a war upon the vexed question as to whether eggs should be decapitated at the big end or the little end. Personally, I am a “ littleendian,” and will maintain my position in the face of both Lilliput and Blefuscu. Well, one subject of everlasting argument is this: “Is there such a tiling as an apple pie, or. indeed, a fruit pie of anv kind? ” The cook puts meat. “ with the usual trimmings,” in a pie-dish, covers _it over with raw pastry, and bakes it in an oven; then, when taken out, it is a pie—beef, (button. or pork, as the case may be. But, if the same thing happens with fruit instead of meat, numbers of foolish people insist on calling it'a “tart —apple or cherry, as the case may be. Yet why? To my mind, a tart is something with the fruit or jam on top of the pastry, and fruit in a piedish, with the pastry on top, is a pie. If not. there is no such thing as an apple pie or a cherry pie, and every well-arranged concern should be in “ apple-tart ” order; naughty boys should make “ apple-tart ” beds for their guests—and the popular name for the heliotrope under my windows should'be “cherry tart.” So there must be aople pies and fruit pies of every kind, and. whenever I see a nicely-baked crust over fruit waiting for me to eat it, I shall call it a pie. If it isn’t nicely baked, I shall call it —well, never mind what; and if it is a mess of stewed apple on a plate with a hypocritical square of dry pastry dabbed on to. it, I shall call the waitress and ask her what the something-or-other she calls it.

A plague of rats is troubling New Plymouth. So heavily has one shopkeeper been affected that losses on his stock in the last two months have cost him more than the weekly rent. Cats, traps, and poison have had little effect.— News item. Long years ago in Hamelin town The rats were certainly annoying; They squeaked and scuttled up and down, Devouring, damaging, destroying. The population, in despair At such an awful visitation, Demanded action from the mayor And bully-ragged the corporation. A Piper came and blew his pipe (I got this yarn from Robert Browning) , And rats of every size and type Were duly done to death by drowning. It isn’t known what tune he played, Performed, intoned, or executed; At all events, he wasn’t paid For any blessed note he tooted. In decency one must refuse To tell the cruel consequences. . That council should have met its dues, And paid legitimate expenses. At any rate, the fact remains That some unprecedented number Of rats was scuppered by the strains Of tango, fox-trot, waltz, or rumba. Quite possibly I may be w r rong (One never knows with these, romances), ■ , It may have been ‘ The Desert song, Or one of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances; A little gay Musette by Bach, A solo from ‘ 11 Trovatcre,’ ‘ The Red Flag,’ ‘ Soldiers in the Park, Or Elgar’s ‘ Land of Hope and Glory.’ It may have, been the case Of syncopation, swing, or rhythm; For all the rodents left that place; It played the very dickens with ’em. But ah! That council’s policy Was singularly mean and sordid. It didn’t pay the Piper’s fee, Or have his tempting tune recorded. YA’s are dumb, ZB’s are mute; YX, YC. YL, YO are Besieged for some seductive toot To lure those rats to Moturoa Which batten on New Plymouth’s food, In spite of all attempts at quelling Their noisome, whiskered multitude, Which scampers round each store and dwelling. The air is raked with shortwave sets For pipers pied with red and yellow, Who play alluring flageolets; And if they find the genuine fellow. They’ll stri’-c a rate and raise a loan To subsidise the new nosition \ Of ),>ni—to wit. New Plymouth’s own Official Rough-on-P.ats Musician!

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things ”

Talking of disputes and arguments* I have just received a letter from a reader who has been having an argument, which reminds me of one or two items which used to occur among the receipts of the Bed Cross organisation during the war. Every noiy and then there would be an entry, “ Argument, 55.” What the argument* was we never knew, but evidently, someone or other had backed his fancy and lost the sum to a patriotic and sporting opponent. I hope this_ reader hasn’t hacked his side too heavily, for <a!ack-a-day!) he has lost. He maintained that the correct contraction of “ whenever ” is “ when’er,” whereas I —who stand in the privileged position, of solo arbiter—must maintain .that “ whene’er” is correct. ■ " The apostrophe only marks' the omission, of a “ v.” Similarly “ howe’er ” is -right, .but “ how’er ” is wrong; “ whate’er• • will stand, and “ what’er V won t. But when one comes to “ where’er ” there is a different tale to tell. You couldn’t take “ where." which ends with an “ e.” and tack “ e’er ” on to the end of it, or you would get “ wheree’er,”and three'“ e’s ” in a row is an overdose for one word. So “ Evening Star Header” loses —not too much, I hope, although the argument, he telle me, generated some heat, which, I hope, has died down by now to a comfortable and genial warmth. _

But our English language is a funny affair. Look at “ temper,” for instance. A man is spoken of as “ haying a temper ” and as “ losing h:a temper”; but whether he has 'it or loses it. the reflection on his disposition amounts to the same thing. The mere fact that he loses his temper is conclusive evidence that he has a temper. You can’t eat your cake and have it—but you can lose your temper and have it. Only, if you remember that the original meaning of the word is approximately “ self-restraint,” you will never talk of a man- “ having a temper,” but of his “having a bad temper ” or u being . ill-tempered. Laziness —pure laziness! We just mis* out the all-important qualifying word; and thereby involve ourselves in paradoses. Then someone, with a sigmfij cant finger to his brow and a shake of 1 the head, tells me that So-and-So is I “ mental,” which is about as funny as ! the “ gastric stomach ” I referred to 1 last Saturday. “ Mental ” only means that So-and-So has a mind or an inI tellect—which most people have, unless j they lose it by “giving a piece -of their mind ” too often. Again—pure laziness! So-and-So may he demented ” or “a mental case. but (please!) not “mental.” there is a parados. You call, a fellow “ a man of mind ” or “a man with a mind of his own,” and he is flat- | tered. But call him “mental R»vhich means exactly the same thing—p'and you will be flattened. And serv* you right for being lazy! » * * * The winter dawn was dark and grey. I rose and switched the kettle on. It wouldn’t boil—alack-a-day! The element was gone. I muttered words uncouth and strange, And sought to light the kitchen range. The kindling wood was green, and wet. Or sulky with a fit of spite; It took me long enough to get . That beastly fire alight, And give my waiting family Its early-morning cup of tea. I went outside to clean my shoe*, And, being in a nasty mood, The blacking tin, of course, would choose That moment to exude Its contents when it started for A roll across the scullery floor. I sought the bathroom, dour and grim. My razor chose that time and place (Through sheer officiousness) to trim A pimple from my face. . The basin looked as if I’d tried A clumsy sort of suicide. I swabbed and mopped and staunched 1 the blood, And, turning thence to dress myself, Perceived the absence of a stud From its accustomed shelf. It took ten minutes grovelling Before I found the wretched thing. Bv then, of course, the kitchen fire 'AVas chillv as the Southern. Pole. _ I’d let the‘(blank, blank) blaze expiri For want, of wood and coal:, (My wife’s expressions, I admit, Held heat enough to kindle it). Mv breakfast took a brace of shakes.-: t bolted it, and promptly fled - (Despite prospective stomach aches) • To seek my motor ,shed, ■ Wherein I gazed in horror at One rear-wheel tyre completely flat! This mournful tale, I’m bound to say. Is nothing but a pack of lies; For never, in -a^ single day. Has fortune given rise. , To all the trials I >have been Describing in this tragic; scene. For one per diem’s quite enough /To cause a psychologic shook; But only the' extremely tough, Gould stand the lot, “ eii bloc ; And then I shouldn’t care (I’ll own) To try and touch them for a loan!