Judge, 1924-04-05 · page 10 of 36
Judge — April 5, 1924 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "American, As She Is Spoken" - Judge Magazine Satire This page satirizes women's incompetence across modern leisure and domestic activities. The title mocks American English as spoken by women, suggesting their speech and abilities are equally garbled. Each vignette—mahjong, bridge, tea parties, radio, golf, automobiles, and office work—depicts women bungling specialized vocabularies and skills. Women misuse technical terms (confusing radio parts, golf clubs, car mechanics), making costly mistakes or creating disasters. The humor relies on 1920s-30s stereotypes of women as intellectually unsuited for anything beyond homemaking. The final exchange ("Do you think a woman should work for a husband?") reinforces the period's assumption that women's proper role was domestic, not professional. The closing joke about "Bay of Whisky" appears to reference Prohibition-era drinking culture, though the connection is unclear. The caricature portrait at top shows the stereotypical "modern woman" with fashionable bob haircut and dangling earrings—visual shorthand for the independent, ambitious woman Judge's audience apparently viewed as ridiculous.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AMERICAN, AS SHE IS SPOKEN (Us it any wonder our language dis- courages the alien?) Between Acts . «80 of course T was cast wind and when somebody put down circles, I went after characters and dragons and couldn't pick up a thing but bamboos. I never did get a flowerpot, and somebody chowed on ererything [laid down. I punged just once before some one mah jongged, and the little whirl set me back just fifty fish. Ar tue TEA «she doubled my no trump on my original make, called for a heart and then laid down an absolute bust. Not only that, she tried to finesse through strength and sluffed through weakness and did not have the card for a bid, anyhow. She revoked and topped her partner's quecn, too. Ow tHe Tray . . . and after my baby erystal, I tried a single bulb set, with quadruple antennae, but I couldn't tune out amateur senders. Somebody's set smashed! Got better results with a double bulb, using water pipe for ground. Get Texas 360 warelength now, with any kind of static. Ar tHe CLuB . «then hooked my brassie into the rough, shanked a mashic, slied a niblick into a bunker, was out in two more, over-ap- proached, got on in another and down in two, after curling a long one up dead. In tHe Orrice . « she stalled on second and would hardly make it on first. Mixture too thin, they said, so they changed the carburetor, and tightened the timing chain, and put in new gaskets, and jazzed up the spark, and drained the crankcase, and manicured the valves, and now she runs like a lily. Nick Fiat ey. Tuen Wuart? Flora—Do you think a woman should work for a husband? Dora—Oh, I guess so—until she gets him. Tue Rovucuer Waters For roughness you can’t beat, they say, The famous Bay of Biscay. But what of New York’s Lower Bay— “Doctor, come quick! Baby's swallowed a green dragon!” The famous Bay of Whisky? comicbooks.com