Judge, 1924-11-08 · page 8 of 36
Judge — November 8, 1924 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page This page satirizes early 20th-century American culture through several pieces: **"The Crossword Addict Makes a Purchase"** mocks the crossword puzzle craze by showing an obsessed customer who speaks entirely in elaborate crossword-style definitions ("A word of two letters signifying negation" = "no"). The joke is that his pedantic, roundabout language—meant to sound intellectual—actually prevents basic communication in a grocery store. The clerk can't understand he wants condensed milk. Only the manager, having "dabbled" in crosswords himself, decodes his speech. The satire targets how the puzzle fad encouraged pretentious, unnecessarily complex language among otherwise ordinary people. **"I Know a Girl"** ridicules a young woman's profound ignorance of culture and theater despite her enthusiasm. She confuses theatrical terms, mistakes famous composers and playwrights for unrelated things (Ibsen = medicinal salts; Maeterlinck = golf course), yet claims to love theater and opera. The humor derives from her pretense of cultural sophistication masking complete incomprehension—a commentary on aspiration without actual knowledge. Both pieces share a theme: Americans adopting intellectual or cultured personas while remaining fundamentally clueless.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Crossword Addict Makes a Purchase Scene—Interior of grocery store. Cast of Characters (in order of appearance)—Clerk, customer (a crossword puzzle addict), store man- ager. Clerk—Are you being waited on, sir? Customer—A word of two letters signifying negation. “T beg your pardon?” “I crave an hermetically sealed vessel of tin plate containing in abbreviated form an opaque whitish liquid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals for the nourishment of their young.” “Sorry, sir, but we sold the last bunch of those just before you came in. However, we have a sale on macaroni and soap powder—three packages of each for half a dollar.” “Your ignorance is sufficient to provoke one to indulge in a series of spasmodic expulsions of breath, with jerky sounds, accompanied by move- ments of the facial muscles. Ha, ha.”” “We're out of that too. Sorry.” (Enter the manager) Clerk (explaining) —This foreigner here wants to buy something. I can’t make out what it is, but I don’t think we carry it anyway. (To make a long story short: The manager, having dabbled a bit in cross- word puzzles himself, quickly solves what the misunderstood gentleman is after, and the latter shortly thereafter makes his exit with a smile of satis- faction upon his face and a can of condensed milk under his arm.) — The hundred per-center. “Diabolical? No, that has one letter too many. I do hope he keeps talking on hell.” I Know a Girl —— HE thinks a stage is merely an J old-fashioned vehicle, that klieg lights are officers in the Ku Klux Klan, that the box-office is a carpen- ter shop and proscenium a new kind of floor covering, but she loves the theater—everything about it. She was talking about “The Miracle.” She hasn't seen it yet, but she says she wouldn't miss it for the world, even if she has to come to New York specially, because she hasn't missed a thing so far that Houdini has done. She thinks Ibsen is a kind of medicinal salts, Gilbert and Sullivan a couple of prize fighters and that Maeterlinck’s a golf course. She also informed me that she liked opera. Carmen, she said, was her favorite because some of her best friends were conductors and motor- men. They would be. She thinks Pagliacci is a kind of candy and that Caruso is what the rooster out on the farm did every morning before a flivver ran over it. Carroll City Life in America The Department Store Gent's furnishings, piano, toy, Glove, plumbing, hardware, bed; We walk through these departments, Then buy a spool of thread. RC. O. Funnybones Face pouder has put more men down and out than gun powder. ; ss ~ Giadge mill pay 85 for cach one printed A LOT OF PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF JONES’ LONE HAIR——BUT— It tells wind direction it predicts chilly weather —and damp weather comicbooks.com