<div>This calls to mind the Woody Allen movie where he attempts a bank robbery, but his note </div>
<div>(which is intended to say "I've got a gun") is not legible to the teller, who reads it as "I've got a gum' and then an argument between various tellers ensues over what it actually says. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>HS<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 2, 2008 2:06 AM, Dennis Baron <<a href="mailto:debaron@uiuc.edu">debaron@uiuc.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 14px Arial" face="Arial" size="4">There's a new post on the <a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage" target="_blank"><font style="COLOR: #0021e7" color="#0021e7"><u>Web of Language</u></font></a>:</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">Good handwriting still important . . . for that successful stick-up note</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">Since the computer came on the scene and rendered all other forms of writing obsolete, no one needs good handwriting anymore, not for school, not for work, not even for bar mitzvah invitations. But Emily Post reminds us that the Palmer method isn't dead after all. A legible, handwritten note may not get you into an Ivy League college, but it's still de rigueur if you want to pull off a good bank heist....</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">Chicago resident Duwayne Allen found this out the hard way. Allen was caught by police after handing a teller at the Park National Bank a barely-legible stick-up note reading in part, "I gut a bomd."</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">After losing valuable minutes explaining to frustrated tellers exactly what his hold-up note said, Allen only had time to scoop up a little over $2,000. But as he fled the scene on foot he had to jettison some of that cash to slow down the bank's security guard, who was hot on his trail.</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">The guard, an off-duty Chicago police officer, called in the heist before giving chase, then stopped to pick up the discarded money. Responding officers caught Allen hiding on a nearby porch, where he threw down the rest of his haul, and briefly held them at bay with the only weapon at his disposal, a double negative, with which he repeatedly told officers, "I don't got no gun." ...</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">Dennis Baron</font></div>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">Department of English<span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"> </span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></font></div>
<div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">University of Illinois<span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"> </span></font></div>
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</div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br>Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br>Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>
University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br>
<a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------