floggings will continue until morale improves

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks for the suggestion, Joel!

I once had a supervisor who had been a kitchen scullion on a freighter
as a merchant-mariner. (Yes, I, too, was much surprised that the word,
_scullion_, still lived, at least into the 'Fifties.).) At the time
that I knew this guy, he held a doctorate in plant biology. He said
that he had found working as a scullion reasonably pleasant,
practically non-distinct from his landlubber's job in the family
pizzeria. However, he had been motivated to seek a new career as a
consequence of having had to take turns on watch in the crow's-nest
during a North-Atlantic winter.

-Wilson

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: floggings will continue until morale improves
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12/7/2009 05:46 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>...
>>At graduation in December, 1960, Language School-grads received thirty
>
> I was sure Wilson was going to follow this with "lashes".  (A fairly
> common number, and below the 40 -- or to be safe, 39 -- permitted by
> Scripture.)
>
>>days of leave and enough money to fly first-class to the ports of
>>embarkation to their permanent duty stations.
>>...
>>As it happens, unless you're *big* brass, all summer return voyages
>>are aboard troopships. Cruising the North Atlantic in *July* requires
>>the use of a trench coat over a field jacket, as the ship takes the
>>Great Circle route north of Scotland. I'd hate to ponder what it must
>>have been like in January.
>
> Get a recording of "Action in the North Atlantic" (1943), with
> Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Julie Bishop, Ruth
> Gordon, Sam Levene, Dane Clark, Peter Whitney, Dick Hogan.  Although
> I don't remember whether the crossings are winter or summer.
>
> Joel
>
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>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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