#i learned that chaff means like the husk of corn

[pub-lius]

De-Georgianizing George Bickham’s Penmanship Made Easy (Young Clerk’s Assistant)

I got this idea a while ago after I made my post about Weird History’s video on Alexander Hamilton, and after @quillsink complemented my post on 18th century penmanship and boosted my ego (you really shouldn’t complement me or I might have self esteem). So, here’s another informal post where I basically just profit off of an old, dead man’s work :D

In the 18th century, people weren’t just given crayons and told to write their name and figure it out from there. They learned from workbooks, like the Young Clerk’s Assistant, that showed them how to from the letters, how to sit properly, and gave example sentences to copy. For purposes of improving my god-awful handwriting and to see what it was like to learn how to write in the 18th century, I purchased this book and went through it, doing only the Round-hand because it looked the easiest. 

Georgie starts by dictating every aspect of your entire life. Here’s a dumbed down version of his silly little list:

-The size of letters is determined by O and N, so make sure you know how to write those ig

-Georgie wants you to suffer so your down-strokes should be THICC and your up-strokes should be very tiny, done with the corner of your pen. Idk if it’s just my quills or if I’m stupid (probably both) but this is impossible and I gave up on this a long time ago

-NEVER TURN YOUR PEN OR THE POSITION OF YOUR HAND

-He says something weird about your up and down-strokes being proportioned and “answer one another” so I would just say uh... make it pretty

-Letters without stems (e, m, u, s, etc.) MUST be even at the top and bottom, so like the same width and height

-Your stems (d, h, etc.) should be equal in height to lowercase L, except t. This drives me crazy because I’m so used to making t the same as the other letters with stems, but its supposed to be shorter, like closer to i.

-Stems going below (y, q, etc.) should be equal in length to j. As you can tell, symmetry is key

-Capitals should be equal to lowercase L, but “a little stronger”, so I’ll leave that up to your interpretation

-The space between words should be twice the difference between letters, and the spaces between lines should be twice the distance of L, so that low hanging stems don’t intersect with the line below. I, apparently, forgot this rule lol

-Hold your pen between two fingers, almost straight (???) and the thumb bending. The nib, or point, of your pen should be flat 

-Put your paper directly in front of you and your hand should be supported by your pinkie finger (gotta do some finger gymnastics jesus).

-Rest your arm ~lightly~ between the wrist and elbow (okay then)

-Sit up straight you baby and keep your elbow close to your side

-Rest your body on your left arm, keeping the paper down with your left hand. And eat food by chewing and breathe by taking in air through your nose and mouth

-NEVER LEAN HARD ON YOUR PEN (make me)

-write slow at first :)

-this one is stupid. make the nib of your pen (”for the round and round hand text hands”) the ~breadth~ of the full stroke, and the part close to the hand? shorter and narrower. I don’t understand this so I don’t listen (omg do I follow any of these rules jesus-)

-for the Italian Hand, make the nib ~finer~ and the slit? longer (if you chose to use the italian hand you’re asking for these confusing rules i can’t help you)

-when numbers appear with letters, the numbers must slope

-numbers should also be bigger than letters

-when you’re writing numbers in columns (because you do that all the time) make them upright

For fun, I’m going to include some moral maxims because I thought some of them were pretty good and they’re good for practice and for examples of how the youth were educated. They had to copy these a bunch when they were learning so they at least subconsciously learned them

-Art polishes and improves nature

-Beauty’s a fair but fading flower

-Fortune’s a fair but fickle mistrefs [mistress]

-Knowledge is a godlike attribute

-Necefsiy [necessity] is the mother of invention

-Variety is the beauty of the world

-Zeal misapply’d is pious phrenzy

I also copied a couple exercises in this book such as copying the days of the week, the months and their amount of days, and a list of Christian names. There’s also this funny little passage that I copied, so I’ll include that as the conclusion to this post. BTW it’s sounds a bit misogynistic but I can’t exactly discern a moral? Like it’s just like “you know how water moves with wind? Yeah women are like that but instead of junk being in the water, the dirt and stuff is men.” and im like “...okay? is that... is that it?” Idk i hate poetry.

“In a dull Stream, which moving flow, You hardly See the Current flow. If a Small Breeze obstructs the Courfe [course], It whirles about for want of Force; And in its narrow Circle gathers Nothing but Chaff, & Straw, & Feathers. The Current of a Female’s Mind Stops thus, and turns with every wind. Thus whirling round, together draws Fools, Fops, & Rakes, for Chaff & Straws.” 

[danny33434]

Never Fall Down: 3/18/18

Summary:

Arn is in the band and the music teacher isn’t really teaching the kids so they are at risk of being killed, Arn fills in as their teacher. The people aren’t getting food and when they do it’s pig muck that’s rotten. Later on the camp leader promises Arn more rice if he plays good at the meeting. Arn is suddenly starting to lose memory of his family. The group starts traveling to different work camps. Arn starts talking to one Khmer Rouge, Sombo, and figures out he actually is good.

Reflection:

This weeks reading was hard to read more and more horrific things happen. Though now Arn has music he is constantly seeing bad things around him. He is starved as days at a time they aren’t even given food. Fast forwarding Arn learns his sister Chantou has died by sickness but he’s in disbelief of that reason, knowing that that Khmer Rouge rape and kill the girls. Arn has a encounter with a Khmer Rouge girl who is older than him. It was hard to put at first but I had to read that again and I realized the girl must of raped Arn as he didn’t understand what was even going on. Arn knows though she is a girl she still has a gun and he has to do what she says. This happens several times. And she always gives him sugar or rice. Because Arn plays good he is “famous” and though the guards see him out they pay him no mind. Throughout this reading Arn sort of plays a fatherly role as he cares for Mek by giving him sugar and saves rice for Siv and Kha. This hurts reading this... not even half way through the book and so much has happened to such a young kid and he has lost so much. Writing about this takes a lot as I put myself in his shoes imagining what he’s going through at the moment.

Literary Device : pg. 94

“I see how he tap his foot when we play music. I see also his face is like a baby. No hair on his lip. Soft cheek.... but all the time, really, he’s a kid...”

In this quote from the book the author uses a simile comparing the guys face to a baby. And also uses imagery explaining how he looks. This stood out to me because Arn explains how though the Khmer Rouge may act fierce and tough killing people, in reality they are just kids... teenagers, and when I think about that puts the Khmer Rouge into a whole new perspective.

Vocab: pg. 83

“chaff”

def: the husks of corn or other seed separated by winnowing or threshing.

my def: the husk surrounding the seed; the part of the grain that is generally thrown away.

sentence: sat down one afternoon and sorted the wheat from the chaff.

Quotes:

“I see all this, smell the blood, like raw meat. And my eyes see it. But I don’t feel anything. If you feel, you go crazy.” ( 77)

Reading this quote reminded me of what Arns aunt had told him “ be like the grass” I keep going back I that advice because it becomes apparent throughout the book. People don’t really stand up against the Khmer Rouge in fear of being killed. And in this quote Arn says that feeling makes you go crazy. Breaking it down I can infer that he means having feelings can make you go crazy because you start thinking about things like your family... and other things that could mean a lot to you and you start to forget everything and go crazy stuff like standing up to the Khmer Rouge. Arn did once and he was spared but if others did many more lives could be lost because of it.

“ ‘ before the Khmer Rouge, ‘ he says, ‘ I was a orphan, hungry all the time’.... so one Khmer Rouge is good, I think. One guy, this Sombo, he is good inside.” (95)

This quote stood out to me because it made me actually have sympathy for the Khmer Rouge. As Arn had said that though they may act tough they really are just kids. And in this case you could see this Sombo has humanity and is able to talk to Arn as equals. This also shows how it could’ve been hard for some of the Khmer Rouge. They all had different lives before all of this, some better than others, but reading this makes me think these two might become friends . But Sombo could get caught talking to Arn and get killed. I hope that doesn’t happen but we’ll see.