CLAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20337, 20 February 1928, Page 13

CLAY.

The nomenclature of the crafts often conies as a strange language to the ears ot tho uninitiated, as an editorial writer in the New York Sun indicates, describing the processes through which an ordinary dinner plate or cup passes, from the time it comes from the clay until it reaches the ultimate user. First, the editonal tells us (comments the Christian Science Monitor) the clay goes into the blunger, is mixed in an agitator, screened through lawn, run through a magnet trough into a press, then to the pugging null, to a jiggeinian. a batter-out, a mould-iumier, a cup-baller, a turner’s sponger, a handler, a handle-caster, a finisher, and, finally, after more strange sounding processes, reaches the straw man. who prepares it for merchandising. Whence comes the strange language of the crafts, the shop talk of industry? Much if it began, perhaps, from expanded or contracted words, as in the case of “ mike.” which is known to every machinist as a micrometer used for measuring minute distances, but which should not be contused with the more familiar ' mike ” ot the radio announcer. Some of this shop talk has come as descriptive of sounds made during mechanical operations, and some has boon dignified into general use and diction record from slang, notably the language of the sea. much of which is ns strange sounding to rhe average Englishsiirakinif prrson flfv the lftnguup’6 of the Tibetans. But there is one croft, neither voting, nor old, into which a strange language has crept, and it is increasing in intricacy with the progress of the machine age. In the making of a daily newspaper much slang is employed, and it has been accepted because it seems in keeping with the speed and energy with wfrch a modern daily is expected to be produced. For instance, a newspaper reporter, or “ leg man.” gets a “tip” on a “story.” He “ hot foots it " to the scene of atfjcLL and after “ getting a line on it,” returns to his office and' “ hats it out ” on a typewriter. The “tip” may result in a.“beat” or a “scoop.” In its journey to the reader, which ordinarily covers an incredibly short soa.ee of time, the story is “ slugged ” “shot” to the composing room, reduced to “ takes,” and proceeds variously to the “assembly,” the “galley,” the “hank” is locked in a forme or “ chase.’’ and. like tho potter’s clay, changes physical propertions several times ’ before it reaches the. reader, bur while all craftsmen speak a different language they are thinking in the ultimate with one accoid—to produce something line from something crude. As tho newspaper reporter secs his story in the meagre “tip” so tho potter views the ungainly lump of clay. Unon the quality of the “ clay ” in tho hands of both potter and reporter, with their methods of handling it, depends largely whether the finished product shall remain mere clay or be given a place among the fine ceramics of history. _________