Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I've already shared this with one person on the Forum, but every time I think about it, I get the giggles.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I attended a high school class reunion a couple of weeks ago. (I certainly hope nobody who attended that reunion is a Lizzie Borden fan!) My old high school, in North Carolina, seems to hold reunions at the drop of a hat. We just had one about three years ago, but this year we met again. Actually this is five classes from the early to mid 1950s. Like most people, I was a complete dweeb in high school, but for some reason I still like to attend these affairs. It's about all I care to see of my old schoolmates, but a couple of evenings can be moderately fun. The committee that puts the reunions together always consists of the same people, who still live in our old hometown and probably are still reliving the glory days of high school.

One of my classmates was named Gertrude. I won't give her surname, but let it suffice to say that she's a most attractive lady of a certain age -- very much the grande dame. Gertrude (or "Trudy" as she prefers to be called) attended this reunion and was seated at the same table with me.
Apparently she noticed during the festivities that her given name had been misspelled (as "Gertude") in the booklet that was handed out to attendees. It bothered her enough that she notified the committee about the error.

A few days ago, I got an urgent email from my class's representative on the committee. He advised us all to whip out our pens and change "Gertude's" name in the handout to correct the spelling. He then provided the correct spelling: "Gerturde."

Somehow I think Trudy should have quit while she was ahead!

"And ladies and gentlemen I now introduce Miss Turdy Gerturd, um, I mean Turdy Gutrude, no um, Trudy Gertrock, no, let's see it's um Miss Trudy..."

That would be embarrassing! Of course you and your whole class will never let her forget this will you?

-1bigsteve (o:

I love it!!!

Great Story!

Mention it to Trudy? Au contraire! Remember Margaret Dumont, Groucho's foil? Trudy doesn't look like Margaret Dumont, but she's about that approachable.

Remember the "misplaced modifier" from high school English? It was illustrated by sentences such as, "Howard passed his house, running down the street." This is an example from an article about dolls in a recent issue of AntiqueWeek (which really needs to hire an editor):

"Originally a composition material that did not survive a child's love, the makers soon switched to a more durable hard plastic." (Their dolls were made from crummy material too.)

One of the oddest chapters in Dave Rehak's "Did Lizzie Borden Axe for It?" is the one about the similarities between Samuel Robinsky (an immigrant peddler who supposedly wrote to Emma Borden about two weeks after the murders) and Hyman Lubinsky (an ice-cream salesman who testified that he saw a woman coming from the direction of the Borden barn on the morning of the murders). Dave lists the similarities: Russian origin, Jewishness, work as peddlers, etc. One of these supposed similarities is that both spoke or wrote with a foreign accent. I know what it is to speak with such an accent; I hear many people do that every week. However, I didn't realize it's possible to WRITE with a foreign accent (except for an accent mark, such as those used for primary and secondary stress or to distinguish between different sounds of the same letter). My dictionary uses the definition: "A distinctive regional or national manner of pronouncing," in fact. Another similarity that's listed is that both men "presumably" knew Yiddish. I can't help wondering what that has to do with the issues at hand. Was the Robinsky note in Yiddish? Did Lubinsky testify in Yiddish? I've never heard that either was the case, though both men seemed to have some trouble with the English language.

Further confusing the issue of Robinsky/Lubinsky is the fact that a picture included in this section is that of Professor James Starrs. (The text relating to Professor Starrs is in a different chapter.)