Dombey, Chapters 8 - 10

[Kim]

How I (and every other kid in Pennsylvania) learned to read:

"Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States. The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot (originally a cat in the 1930s, but a dog in later editions), Puff the cat, and Tim the teddy bear. The books relied on the whole word or sight word reading method, (not to be confused with whole language) and repetition, using phrases like, "Oh, see. Oh, see Jane. Funny, funny Jane."







I could keep going but we won't get to roboscis for a while yet. A long while. A long, long while.

[Everyman]

Kim wrote: "I bet you had to walk ten miles to get there too, in the snow, up hill, both ways. I heard all that when I was your age stuff from my dad long ago.
"

So your father was dishonest. As to the snow, you know what Pennsylvania used to get (it gets a lot less now), and I spend time also in Maine, so ...

Nah, not uphill both ways. Down a very steep hill to get to the school bus, trudging back up that hill at the end of the day, hot and tired. And no, not ten miles, only a mile and a half. We lived down a long private road, and my parents didn't believe in mollycoddling kids, so we walked.

It all made me strong. Which is a good thing, since I have to be strong to survive your constant assaults.

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "How I (and every other kid in Pennsylvania) learned to read:

"Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp and published by Scott Fore..."

Thanks for posting those, Kim! I just witness how my son is learning to read and write, and how often he is tempted to write according to sound, which is a quite natural thing to do, I should think. Luckily, the German language is quite systematic when it comes to matching sound and letters, i.e. most words are written the way they are pronounced - so that learning to write is relatively easy.

English, however, is a horse of a different colour as you cannot predict from the spelling how a word is pronounced.

Examples, anyone?

worm - storm
tramp - swamp
though - tough
road - broad
thieves - sieve
good - blood - brooch

This way, you could spell "fish" as "ghoti"
"gh" as in enough
"o" as in women
"ti" as in nation

;-)

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "As to the word "proboscis" itself, it was probably one of the first words I ever learnt of the English language, along with such favourites as "serendipity", "pusillanimity", "hali..."

Kim,

you know that it took Everyman to explain the meaning of a short word like "if" to me. Don't you remember?

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "How I (and every other kid in Pennsylvania) learned to read:

"Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp and published b..."

You know what I was trying to figure out earlier today? Why we go to the store to buy a new shirt when we need it, but we go to the store to buy a pair of pants if we need them. Why do we say "a pair of pants" when we are only buying one item?

[Kim]

Everyman wrote: "Kim wrote: "I bet you had to walk ten miles to get there too, in the snow, up hill, both ways. I heard all that when I was your age stuff from my dad long ago.
"

So your father was dishonest. As ..."

I will have you know that my father did many, many amazing things. When my sister asked him why all the rocks were piled up along the fields so that they looked like walls, he told us that when he and the first settlers came here they built the walls to keep out the Indians. They used to lay behind the rocks and shoot at the Indians. I told him I thought the farmers just stacked them there to get them out of the fields, but he said I was wrong.

He also built the covered bridges that were around the town (and washed away in the 1972 flood)- he and the settlers built them to hide in and shoot at the Indians through the cracks between the boards. I thought that would have trapped them in the covered bridges, but dad said they were good shots.

He also told us that our great-great-great (I forget how many greats) grandparents were Indians in the valley and we used to sell maple syrup to the white settlers when they first came here. I asked him why he then drove our relatives out of the area, but I can't remember his answer. :-}

[Hilary]

Wow, Kim! You might never have existed if one of your ancestors had been shot! Think of all the fun, games and info we'd have missed out on ...

[Kim]

Hilary wrote: "Wow, Kim! You might never have existed if one of your ancestors had been shot! Think of all the fun, games and info we'd have missed out on ..."

You know that last story, the maple syrup one, my sister actually thinks may have happened. I'm not sure why she would think our being maple syrup Indians would be more believable than our being the first settlers in the valley, but usually once or twice a year (at the holidays of course) we argue again, the likelihood of this being where we came from. :-}

[Hilary]

Oh I love the maple syrup story. I choose to believe it, true or false ...

[Hilary]

Tristram, I prefer that spelling of 'fish'. I think that I'll use that from now on ...:D

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "This way, you could spell "fish" as "ghoti"

You're a nut. pronounced like hut/shut/but/cut. Second definition in the dictionary: 2. a. A crazy or eccentric person. :-}

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "This way, you could spell "fish" as "ghoti"

You're a nut. pronounced like hut/shut/but/cut. Second definition in the dictionary: 2. a. A crazy or eccentric person. :-}"

I were indeed a nut if I had come up with the rules or non-rules of English spelling. I picked up that ghoti thing from my phonetics teacher at university.

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "How I (and every other kid in Pennsylvania) learned to read:

"Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Shar..."

Well, I think you say "a pair of trousers", because they consist of two legs. There are some people who also use the German plural form "Hosen" instead of "Hose" for one pair of trousers.

The two-bits-make-one-item rule also applies to scissors, glasses, binoculars, compasses, lungs and even, in some cases, brains. It's a nice rule! In these cases, the German language uses a singular noun, though, even in its dialects.

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "How I (and every other kid in Pennsylvania) learned to read:

"Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray an..."

A shirt has two arms and I've never bought a pair of shirts. At least not when I was only buying one. And come to think of it, it does apply to scissors, glasses, binoculars, etc. which does not explain why we do it. :-}

[Tristram]

I don't know why one would do it at all, but I think it is reasonable not to do it with shirts because unlike all the other things I mentioned, which consist basically of two parts, a shirt has two arms but there is the whole bit in the middle that makes it one thing.

Maybe one should also say "a pair of butterflies", meaning one of them. That would be logical.

The more I think about it, the more likely I am to come up with a reasonable-sounding explanation. How's this one:

Scissors, binoculars, scales, compasses and glasses are assembled by putting together / joining two units that are exactly alike. In a way, the same is also true of trousers. - Maybe that was the sort of thinking behind this plural form for a singular thing. That would also explain why you don't say "a pair of butterflies" ;-)

[Tristram]

All I know for sure is that I love the English language. After all, it was Dickens's mother tongue.

[Elisa]

I was mistaken. Strange though the relationship is between Mr. Dombey and Paul, it's a relationship that Florence would have loved to have.

And, we see again that Mrs. Chick is not to be dominated by her brother. "My dear Paul...I must be spoken kindly to, or there is an end of me." And, Mr. Dombey backs down! It reminds me of all the times that Mrs. Chick comments that Florence's and Paul's mother was not a true Dombey. I suspect that her mother *was* a 'true Dombey', so she had a role model for a certain degree of female assertiveness.

I noticed the dramatic mourning that Mrs. Pipchin is wearing, forty years after the unfortunate incident of the Peruvian mines. It reminded me of Queen Victoria, thirteen years later. (I looked up the dates.)

And the description of Mrs. Pipchin's meals, and general style, reminded me of Jane Eyre, too.

There was some discussion, earlier, of Dickens treating #147 of the Charitable Grinders as comic relief. Here's another example of Dickens taking that approach to some of his characters. "Master Bitherstone...suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he once asked Florence...if she could give him any idea of the way back to Bengal." Again, it's a male, non-central character.

Well, I was terrified at the thought of Walter asking money from Mr. Dombey. Humiliating as it was for Walter, it didn't turn out half as bad as I expected.

We've already gotten the point, but Mr. Dombey spells it out for us. "'Girls,' said Mr. Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son.'"

[Everyman]

Am enjoying your comments, even if I'm not directly replying to them. You're on a great journey, should be done in time to start David Copperfield with us.

[Elisa]

I'm not expecting anyone in particular to reply, since I'm so far behind everyone else. I'm having a lot more fun than if I'd just waited to start David Copperfield.

[Hilary]

Glad you're enjoying Dombey, Elisa! :-)

[Bionic Jean]

Just popping in here. I've read these first three threads (after the relevant chapters of course) and found them most illuminating. So much discussion about the psychological profiles of various characters ... I am constantly amazed that Dickens, with his Victorian perception, could so accurately render characters that some of us in the 21st century can now identify and pinpoint the particular psychological condition they exhibit - and even give it a clinical name in some instances.

The discussion about Time as a motif (previous thread) was absolutely fascinating - I am grateful for this as it is now in the forefront of my mind, and I'm not sure I would have picked up its significance so soon otherwise.

You know, I was all prepared to tell you the anecdote about the "bad" drawing, and my thought that all it was was that it didn't match Dickens's own idea of "his" Mrs Pipchin (or actual memory of Elizabeth Roylance) - only to find that Kim pipped me at the post!

Ah well, perhaps I'll have a tasty titbit for the next, or some subsequent, thread :)

[Kim]

Jean wrote: "You know, I was all prepared to tell you the anecdote about the "bad" drawing, and my thought that all it was was that it didn't match Dickens's own idea of "his" Mrs Pipchin (or actual memory of Elizabeth Roylance) - only to find that Kim pipped me at the post!"

You could have repeated it just for me. I have such an awful memory that I didn't know what you meant and had to go look through the posts and reread it. :-)

[Peter]

Jean wrote: "Just popping in here. I've read these first three threads (after the relevant chapters of course) and found them most illuminating. So much discussion about the psychological profiles of various ch..."

Jean: Good to see your post and a new picture! Dombey is a favourite Dickens to me. enjoy!

[Bionic Jean]

Peter - it's seeming to divide opinion, but I am certainly enjoying it. Somehow I think the fact that Dickens can't help but create these amazing wonderful cameos, obscures the fact that Dombey and Son is very well planned - perhaps more than any other so far - with lots of layers and deeper significances.

What is in our immediate experience is these quirky humorous parts - and sometimes it's so discursive that we have to try hard to remember the storylines!

Kim - That made me laugh - yes I am still woefully behind but am slowly catching up. Just one more book before I'm synchronised with you all.

Thanks both for responding :)