- hi; you were kind enough to enquire as to "why ppint. ?", or "why no capital letters" - or *both* - so here is: _the_story_of_my_hand_ - i learned to write "joined-up" writing at summerside school, a state school in north finchley (before anyone had ever heard of the dalek that destroyed more of british industry and society than messers hitler and goering managed to) and, like almost everyone else there, learned the bog-standard, "loopy", debased copperplate hand using steel-nibbed dip pens, (once-)white pottery ink-wells, full of little bits of "blotch", and watered-down stephens' blue-black ink. diligently executed, copperplate is a truly beautiful, though rather slow, "hand"- but not so the debased copperplate that i learned quickly, though not exceptionally so, and it was only after a while that i twigged that, although everyone else could (apparently) read what i wrote, i _literally_ could *not*. - after the eleven plus exam, i went into u.c.s. junior school's fifth form (u.c.s., in common with all other public schools, transferred from junior school to senior school two years - though by pupils' average ages, only eighteen months - later than the state school system). (it probably does so still.) as a matter of course, it was there assumed - with great accuracy, so far as i was able to observe - that *no* new bugs could write legibly, and _all_ were taught to write a round hand chancery script designed by eric gill that was (and is) both beautiful and fast, and which does not degrade into illegibility with increasing speed of use. - new bugs entering u.c.s. after the eleven plus were also in demand for the school sports teams, if they showed any talent what- soever, being on average between three and six months older than the alumni of lower forms - and, being too stupid to realise that team sports are dangerous, i got tagged. unfortunately, i suffered a fract- ure to a bone in my hand and had to attend the middlesex hospital once a week for x-rays, at the same time every week for some six or so weeks - which happened to coincide with the arts/crafts lessons in which handwriting was being taught. - the result of this was that i missed every lesson in which we were taught the upper case - and by the time i'd evolved upper case letters of my own (which took quite some time for the less commonly used letters) i was completely accustomed to using lower case through- out, reserving my (initially laboriously-worked) upper case letters for special emphasis. - so it _isn't_ that "i don't use capital letters"... - i do; but differently... - and, having met few people of my own generation (and _none_ of any younger generation), who can write clearly and neatly, i'm still - even _more_ - of the opinion that everyone "ought" to develop a hand of their own that is both beautiful and legible, and expresses their personality. - but why "ppint." ? - well, while we were all learning to use our italic-nibbed osmiroid 65 (and 75) fountain pens, but before we'd learned even the lower case of the eric gill-designed hand, i perforce wrote debased copperplate with my italic-nibbed pen, possessing no other. this tended to close up large loops into (rather thick) single lines, and eliminate the "holes" in the middle of small ones, as in the letters "a", "b", "d", "e", "g", "q", and more particularly"p" and "o"; - this was of no great significance to the letter "p", which remained recognisable for what it truly was, - but reduced my then signiature's final letter to, apparently, - a full stop. - and i was nick-named accordingly by my friends. - and so "ppinto" became "ppint." - simple, really. -------------------------------------------------------------- "but how is it pronounced ?" - i don't know, really. because it is a nick-name, it is a thing conferred or bestowed upon me, and i am therefore not the ultimate authority upon this point. - those who originated the nick-name pronounced it "pin-t", and thus it stayed for a year or so; however, one friend po- ssessed of a very powerful personality apparently just knew that the proper pronunciation was "p-pin-t", and quite a proportion of her friends from the hen barn (and elsewhere) just naturally followed her extremely clearly-blazed trail in this. when i went to the university of york, the pretty- well uniform pronunciation preferred (by those who used it at all) was "pin-t", and there the matter stayed as, when moved "back" to the north-wet, only one friend moved with me and, when we split up, the nick-name fell into abeyance. - it was revived accidentally, when chanddo (originally sue steiner) visited me for a week's holiday in lancaster (did i mention that she has a strong personality ? *g*), with people being divided as to which of the two pronun- ciations to adopt even in ignorance of the historical schism upon the point - so variation would appear to inhere in the name itself. - so, when i gained 'net access (and first put my foot upon the slippery slope towards netxcess), and decided for various reasons that i wanted a nick or "handle" that was gender neutral, i did not have to cast my net far abroad, to find one such eminently suitable. quite how [af]people mentally pronounced it is, of course, beyond even my powers of divination to determine: how- ever, it would appear from having later met a number of them, that the same two-fold split in the path of knowledge - if not necessarily wisdom - prevailed. - a few years later, however, a small madwoman with an eight (?)-foot high purple dinosaur decided that the one, true pronunciation was quite evidently, "pea-pint" (or possibly, "pee-pint" *g*), and, be- ing lively and bouncy and high-spirited and extro- vert, soon had a following in this, as in much else. - but to re-iterate, i really do not know how "ppint." should be pronounced, because it is a nick-name, a thing conferred or bestowed upon me, and i am there- fore not the ultimate authority upon this point. - you lot (and other, non-afper friends) are. -------------------------------------------------------------- - as to the "secret" of my sex, or gender: there's a number of reasons of which i'm aware - there may be some of which i'm not - including some silly and some trivial - and some not; these include reasons both personal and political: - one reason is that, upon the 'net, you cannot know; not truly. accordingly, what people say and how they say it are what we ought to judge by, not what race, colour, creed, sex or species. - another, is that it doesn't half annoy right wing reactionary (especially, but by no means only, merkin) male supremacists and similar bigots, who depend on being able to judge by such things. - but the strongest reason for me, is to remember nick reynolds, a very dear friend of mine, now dead. nick was a trans-sexual, who when he came out to us was terrified his friends would drop "him" like a stinking load of ordure: he was trembling with fear when he told me. i don't think any did; as far as i was concerned, it was something i'd not previously known about a very good friend, that was of great importance to him, but not in any way a hideous moral secret whose revelation could alter him in my estimation. and, as i told him, if i had any problems with the idea, they were problems in my head, not problems with him. as i said, nick is dead. he died of a recurred brain tumour, over a horrendous year in which he and his true love, di reynolds, strove as hard as they could to fight the cancer. they managed to succeed long enough for them to be able to marry (over three times longer than had been estimated by the specialists involved) but eventually the fight, and the pain, wore nick out. the last time he was awake, aware of his surroundings, he managed to watch and enjoy a max fleischer "betty boop" video i'd found and brought down for him, but couldn't cope with the second one on the cassette. he dozed off, both tired and in pain under the drugs he'd been prescribed, and he never "woke" again. he died some three days later. - reserving the "secret" of my full name and sex, or gender, from those who only "e-know" me, and phrasing all my news articles and e-missives to avoid revealing my sex, is a way i can remember nick every day of the rest of my life; by no means perfect, he was truly a wonderful person, and i miss him, sometimes terribly, but i miss him. --------------------------------------------------------------------- - so i'd appreciate your help in maintaining the "secret", by taking care to avoid indicating my sex/gender and christian name to anyone you're not _certain_ already knows it - should you have any occasion to talk of me, that is. - thanks. - love, ppint. -- "Argh. Incoherence. Another thing I'm good at..." - joann l.dominik 7/2/96 (2/7/96 in merkia)