Not the joke I was remembering, sort of, of course, but a wonderful
association. Yes, there's a whole complex of possible jests concerning
closets, secretaries, pens, etc. But I had either forgotten about all
this and Master FJ--or had failed to get it. So many, many thanks. Anne.
On Jan 12, 2010, at 5:36 PM, Gillian Austen wrote:
> Anne, regarding your joke, Susan Staub gave a very entertaining
> paper on Master FJ at the Gascoigne Seminar last year which brought
> out the sexual punning on the "secretary" as the keeper of the
> lady's "secrets", so I wonder if the joke you're thinking of may
> also have a bawdy kind of meaning too? It would be good to see the
> wording, but perhaps it plays on that kind of misogynistic idea of a
> woman not being able to "keep" a "secret", sexually or
> linguistically? Just a thought.
>
> Gillian Austen
>
> Anne Prescott wrote:
>> Sorry, Roger. All I remember is a joke almost suggesting the
>> opposite (that doesn't mean you aren't right, only that they were
>> inconsistent), so I'd love to hear any answers you get to this. I
>> also wish I could remember where I read the joke--it's in a
>> Renaissance (English) jestbook and answers the question about why
>> there are no women secretaries (ho ho, when you consider more
>> recent times) and the answer depends on a wording that I can't
>> quite remember but is something to the effect that "who has ever
>> seen that a woman could write secretary"--but in the original the
>> language punned on "write" secretary and "be a" secretary. Someday
>> I'll find that joke. Anyway, that suggested that women preferred
>> Italic because the poor dears aren't up to secretary hand. Since I
>> think a lot of women did write secretary hand I find this
>> confusing. True, I can read Italic but need the likes of you to
>> read secretary.
>> Many years ago either Joe Loewenstein in his essay about a
>> printer's aide who absconded with the Italic font moulds (molds?),
>> or someone even deeper in my past (in RenQ, maybe, or Studies in
>> the Renaissance) had a nifty bit on a young man in Italy who wrote
>> his dad in Italic because he knew it would bug him to see the
>> younger generation using this fancy new script as well as reading
>> these fancy new Greek imports from the East. Maybe it was
>> fashionable because it was recently foreign and so way totally
>> unlike the Gothic times of one's great-grandparents?
>> I will find that joke. Anne.
>> On Jan 12, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Roger Kuin wrote:
>>> (apologies for cross-posting)
>>>
>>> Dear Sidspens,
>>>
>>> I remember hearing a conference paper a number of years ago in LA
>>> that claimed that in 16C England the italic hand was considered
>>> more difficult to write than secretary hand, and that in part for
>>> that reason it had prestige. Does anyone have a source or a
>>> corroboration for this idea?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Roger Kuin
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