yet more GB caveats

[Jonathan Lighter]

Bill Mullins on another thread makes ref. to "p. 944" in a magician's
magazine of 1935.  I don't think it comes from Google Books, but it reminds
me of something that happened just this afternoon.

A search of GB revealed two "snippet views" taken from _The Saturday Review
of Literature_ XII, 1935. One referred simply to "p. 52," another to "p.
237."

Requiring more than a snippet, I headed for the campus library to look
at the magazine. "P. 237" seemed a suspiciously high number for the
_Saturday Review_, but knowing that periodicals often used to paginate
straight through the volume, I laffed it off.

When I got Vol. XII out of storage, I discovered there was no "p. 237."  (In
fact there was no "p. 32" either, the _SR_ typically containing something
like 24pp.)

Nor did counting the pages one by one through two issues work for the "p.
32" ref.  I was far too clever to try the same technique in search of "p.
237."

By flipping many, many pages, I finally discovered the source of the snippet
on a page that had nothing whatever to do with the number "32."

So you can imagine my frame of mind as I kept flipping pages, one by one, to
discover the source of the even more important GB ref. to "p. 237."

Of course... Well, you're way ahead of me! Of course it wasn't there!  Why
not? My guess is because it's in "Vol. XIII" which contains the *rest* of
the year 1935!

(Of course, Vol. XIII is in storage and temporarily unavailable.)
So *never* trust a periodical page ref. or volume number from GB or any
similar source unless you see it photographically reproduced. Which almost
never happens in a "snippet view."

In fact, unless it looms up authentically in front of you, don't trust the
date either, .
Just a precaution.

JL


_
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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