Funk family contributions in lexicology are legendary

Isaac Kaufmann Funk became a book publisher and printer in 1876. Through several generations, the Funk family has managed to leave an indelible mark on the “word business.”

Isaac Funk and his business partner Adam Willis Wagnalls would form Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1890. Early on, important Funk & Wagnalls’ publications included dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Isaac Funk 

Later, the company branched out to produce newspapers, magazines, digests and other assorted periodicals. 

Wilfred John Funk, Isaac’s son took over as company president in 1925. He took dual role as a lexicologist and writer of poetry quite seriously. 

Historian Kendra Turner said that Wilfred Funk “not only made a living with words, he played with words, rearranged them, relished them.”

 

Wilfred Funk

In 1932, Wilfred Funk promoted his company’s new dictionary by publishing “a list of the 10 most beautiful words in the English language, having regard for both sound and meaning.” 

His picks were: “dawn, hush, lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, melody.”

 

A full 90 years later, Funk’s list is still generating commentary. A contemporary texter replied: “Wow...this list makes me want to relax to the tranquil melody of the wind chimes’ lullaby as I stretch out next to a murmuring stream and watch the luminous, golden sunshine through the waterfall’s mist at dawn. (9 out of 10 ain’t bad; lol).” 

An easy “edit” would be to delete “Wow” and insert “Hush child….” 

Here’s a quick collection of 10 more common words that readers have suggested over the decades: “wistful, pastoral, shampoo, effervescence, aurora, serendipity, whimsical, bubble, eloquent, grit.” 

In 1934, Funk listed the “10 modern Americans who have done most to keep American jargon alive,” opening up a separate realm for public discussion and debate. From Funk’s perspective, “American jargon” was akin to “slang,” 

He chose a bunch of guys who made waves in the entertainment and news industries, for the most part. They were: Sime Silverman, H. L. Mencken, Tad Dorgan, Walter Winchell, Arthur “Bugs” Baer, Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, Gelett Burgess, George Ade and Gene Buck. 

In 1940, Funk resigned as president of Funk & Wagnalls to start Wilfred Funk, Inc., a book publishing firm. Funk was best known for his books and articles on vocabulary improvement and etymology.

“His work,” TIME Magazine observed, “made the entire nation self-conscious about its vocabulary,” and he was “a tireless missionary for the English language. He viewed the language as living and evolving, formed by everyday usage.”

From 1945 until his retirement in 1962, Funk wrote a popular Reader’s Digest monthly feature, “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power.” It was one of the most popular features in the magazine. 

Wilfred’s son, Peter Van Keuren Funk, also a novelist, publisher and wordsmith, took over responsibility for the column in 1962. Peter’s work continued to be featured in each issue of the magazine into 1998.

 

Peter Funk

“Whenever we learn a new word,” Peter said, “it is not just dumped into our ‘mental dictionary.’ Our brain creates neural connections between the new word and others relevant to our interests.” 

One noteworthy contemporary logophile (lover of words) is Jeanne Matthews, an American novelist. She said: “Every time I visit Great Britain, I come home with an expanded vocabulary.” 

Matthews wrote that a newspaper “editorialist described the House of Lords as a ‘worm farm of claret-gargling…quangocrats.’” That’s a bit of an acronym for quasi-autonomous, non-governmental bureaucrats.

 

In Matthews’ mind: “A writer’s vocabulary is her toolbox, and a reader’s vocabulary is his key to reading comprehension.”

This ‘Perry Mason case’ is classic American patriotism

Will the real Perry Mason please stand up? 

Actor Raymond Burr played the role of defense attorney Perry Mason.

Author Erle Stanley Gardner chose to name his fictional defense attorney who starred in his mini-novels and then on radio and television as Perry Mason.

 

Erle Stanley Gardner

Is there a story behind that? Oh, yes. Indeed there is. 

Perry Mason Company in Boston, Mass., was the publisher of The Youth’s Companion, a magazine that was a favorite read of Gardner, as a young boy in Malden, Mass. 

The character Perry Mason debuted in Gardner’s works in 1933. Gardner presented Mason as a “hard-boiled, two-fisted attorney.” 

Except Perry Mason the printer wasn’t real either. 

The Youth’s Companion was a weekly newspaper that “dispensed moral education, information and fiction to generations of young people.” Its mission was to “warn against the ways of transgression, error and ruin…and allure to those of virtue and piety.”

 

Daniel Sharp Ford, a Baptist newspaper editor from Cambridge, Mass., acquired The Youth’s Companion in 1857. 

Ford named his new business Perry Mason Company for reasons that remain unknown, “other than his seeking anonymity” from his publication, concluded history scholar Dr. John W. Baer. (Ford’s name never appeared within the publication. He remained editor until he died in 1899.) 

Ford and his nephew, James Bailey Upham, launched a patriotic marketing campaign in 1888 to “place a flag above every school in the nation.” All the better if schools purchased those flags from the Perry Mason Company.

 

Schools began to teach “patriotism and American values,” reported the New England Historical Society.  

In 1892, Ford and Upham saw a great opportunity for “schoolchildren to participate in a flag-related ceremony on Oct. 12, 1892, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas,” the society’s archivist said. 

Freelance writer Zachary Crockett called the initiative a Perry Mason “marketing gimmick” to get schools to buy more flags. “Upham, in a spurt of genius, decided to monetize patriotism by creating a ‘pledge’ in which children would declare their undying love for America.” 

Francis Julius Bellamy, a Baptist minister and a new employee at The Youth’s Companion, was assigned the task. He sat down and wrote 22 words. They were: 

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Francis Julius Bellamy

Flag historian and author Jeffrey Owen Jones called Bellamy’s work “a clean, easy-flowing and pleasantly cadenced piece of writing. The kind of compact prose that trips off the tongue as The Pledge does is deceptively difficult to craft,” Jones added. 

Bellamy said he gave it “two hours of arduous mental labor” to produce the succinct and rhythmic tribute.” 

Ford published The Pledge of Allegiance in The Youth’s Companion’s back-to-school edition in in early September 1892. School officials loved it. President William Henry Harrison proclaimed Oct. 21, 1892, as a new national holiday – “Discovery Day” – to be “observed in schools, churches, and other places of assembly,” honoring Christopher Columbus.”

 

“It is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be…the center of the day’s demonstration,” Harrison said. “Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”

Instantly, The Pledge became a warm blanket covering all elements of society. It was recited at schools, athletic events, other public gatherings…and in Congress.

 

This year marks the 130-year anniversary of the creation of The Pledge of Allegiance…and 430 years since Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

‘Perry Mason’ reruns offer a stroll down memory lane

It’s hard to believe that “Perry Mason” premiered on the CBS television network in 1957. Now, 65 years later, the show lives on through syndication. It’s easy to find, view and enjoy the 271 old black-and-white, one-hour episodes.

 The murder mystery and courtroom drama series ran for nine years (through 1966), and had things worked out a little differently during the auditions, the lead character role of legendary defense attorney Perry Mason might not have gone to William Raymond Stacy Burr. 

Burr actually auditioned for the part of Hamilton Burger, the prosecuting attorney. According to Monica Huntington, a writer at IMDb (Internet Movie Database), the online database for the entertainment industry and a subsidiary of Amazon, “the studio executives liked Burr so much, they offered him the title role instead.” 

“Standing a looming 6 feet 2 inches, Burr was broad-shouldered and had an impressively commanding presence,” Huntington said. However, he weighed about “60 pounds past portly.” A crash diet took off the excess weight. Burr “emerged at 210 pounds” – stocky not pudgy. 

Among the actors who had auditioned to play Perry Mason were William Whitney Talman Jr. and William DeWolf Hopper Jr.

William Tallman

 

William Hopper

Both men were offered other positions in the “Perry Mason” cast – Talman in the role of Hamilton Burger and Hopper to play Paul Drake, the private detective who handled the sleuthing for Perry Mason. Fortunately, for fans of the show, both men accepted those supporting actor parts. 

Talman’s skill as an actor was tested in every episode. Week after week, Hamilton Burger would come up short in his battle of wits with Perry Mason. 

Just when it looked like the prosecutor was about to win a case, Perry Mason would bamboozle him – snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. 

William Talman hailed from Detroit, Mich. All three Talman boys attended Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills and participated in the drama club, but William stood out. “Bill could read a page once, turn it over, and recite every word by heart,” said brother Jim. 

Detroit author Richard Bak said the young actor with the wavy hair was just starting his Broadway career when World War II broke out. William Talman was drafted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. After the war, Talman moved to Hollywood, looking to break into films. He was often cast as a villain, appearing in more than 20 feature films. 

Talman shed that “bad guy” image with the “Perry Mason” series. He became known as the “quintessential loser.” Talman even joked that he was “the most unsuccessful prosecuting attorney in the history of the legal profession.”

 

In the final episode of the series in 1966, Hamilton Burger outdid himself by losing two cases that night. 

Talman told the press: “Once again, good old Hamilton Burger picks the wrong man to prosecute in both cases. Mason gets one of them off on a trick, and I get sore about it. I wouldn’t want to hit Ray Burr, but I think Hamilton Burger would like to slug Perry Mason.” 

Surya Nair, a Hamilton Burger fan club member, said her guy was “endlessly frustrated and exasperated by Perry Mason…and his ‘legal tightrope walking.’” 

“Hamilton Burger was correct to call out Perry Mason’s “unorthodox methods, proclaiming them ‘courtroom theatrics,’” Nair said. 

“William Talman talked about the difficult balance of making the character intelligent, yet stupid enough to always end up losing to Perry Mason,” she said. “It is indeed a delicate, and strange, balance.”

Ohioans have a love affair with sousaphones

Ohio has written some important chapters that have contributed toward the historical significance of a musical instrument invented in 1895 and named the sousaphone, a tribute to America’s legendary band leader and composer John Philip Sousa. 

First, there was President Warren G. Harding, who became the Republican party’s nominee for U.S. president in August 1920. To celebrate the occasion, Harding hoisted a sousaphone to play along with the band that was performing on the front porch of his home in Marion, Ohio.

 

As a young boy, Harding learned to play the alto horn (a brass, valved instrument), and he was quite talented. He once said he “could play about all the instruments,” having yet to try “a slide trombone and an E-flat cornet.” 

Harding went on to win the presidential election of 1920, and his biographer, Willis F. Johnson, recorded that Harding “was known to have picked up an instrument occasionally and joined the Marine Band during its rehearsals at the White House.”

 

Sousaphones became the “featured” instrument within Ohio State University’s marching band in 1936, with the advent of “Script Ohio.” The classic, constantly flowing movement became “the signature and quintessential formation” showcased by the OSU band. 

Band Director Eugene J. Weigel created the looped “Ohio” script, and under his direction, the band transformed into the first all-brass-and-percussion college band in the United States.

 

It’s an amazing sight to see unfold at the “horseshoe stadium” in Columbus, Ohio. First, the band forms a triple “block-O” formation near one sideline. Then, the drum major slowly leads an unwinding procession of the 192 on-the-field musicians. 

As the band performs a classic French march (Robert Planquette’s “Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse,” it’s more than a three-minute journey to get into proper formation. The climax occurs with 16 measures to go in the song. 

The drum major and the designated senior sousaphone player strut to the top of the “i” in “Ohio.” When they arrive, the drum major points to the spot, and the “i”-dotter turns and bows deeply to both sides of the stadium.

Thunderous applause rains down from the stands, as a capacity crowd of 104,944 spectators responds in unison (including the sprinkling of fans who are there to root for the visiting team on the gridiron). 

The ESPN television network selected the dotting of the “i” as the very best college football tradition in the nation. 

There are 28 sousaphone players within the OSU band, and a different member of the senior class is chosen to perform the honor at each home football game. 

On very rare occasions, exceptional non-band members are offered the invitation to be an honorary i-dotter in recognition of their service to Ohio State and to the band. 

Previous honorary i-dotters have included comedian Bob Hope (1978), former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes (1983), professional golfer Jack Nicklaus (2006) and Sen. John and Annie Glenn (2009).

 Former OSU president E. Gordon Gee was a 1995 i-dotter.

OSU sousaphone player Ben Murawski of Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, was “in line” to be an i-dotter in 2020, but the band was benched for the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reported Marcus Hartman of the Dayton Daily News. 

Murawski went on to earn his degree in computer engineering but opted to come back for one more season in the band, a decision “the majority of 2020 fourth-year sousaphone players made so they could take part in one of Ohio State’s most cherished traditions.”

 

Murawski got his turn to dot the “i” Oct. 9, 2021, in the home game against Maryland.

Sousa’s new bass instrument adds ‘frosting to the cake’

Sousaphones are the darlings of today’s college marching bands, and football fans everywhere can thank the legendary band leader John Philip Sousa for the invention.

 

Sousa had an idea to “improve upon” the funky bass instrument known as a helicon, which was developed in 1845 by Ignaz Stowasser of Vienna, Austria. It was built in a spiral circular form that rested on the player’s left shoulder. 

In effect, the musician “wore” the instrument, making it relatively easy to carry in horseback military bands – it’s intended purpose.

 

Evaluating the helicon, Sousa said: “It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suit me for concert performances.” He turned to his friend James Welsh Pepper of Philadelphia in 1895. 

Sousa said: “I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the brass bell of great size would turn upward…so that the sound would diffuse over the entire band like the frosting on a cake!" 

“He built one and called it a Sousaphone.” 

Sousa was pleased with Pepper’s “modification,” but when played outdoors, the sousaphone’s effectiveness could be diluted by Mother Nature. The instrument was dubbed a “rain catcher.”

 

Another of Sousa’s friends was Charles Gerard Conn of Elkhart, Ind. He’s the guy who came up with the idea of tilting the sousaphone bell forward in 1908, so it could send forth “dry music,” and project the instrument’s notes over the heads of other marching band members.

 

Pepper’s original 1895 sousaphone was discovered in 1973. It was “hiding” at Renninger’s Antiques Market in Adamstown, Pa. John Bailey, a 24-year-old tuba player found the instrument hanging from the rafters while “browsing” the store with his mother and sister. Bailey bought the big horn for $50. 

In 1991, Bailey contacted J.W. Pepper & Son, Inc., and company officials “quickly jumped at the chance to purchase the instrument,” reported Brendan Lyons, a copywriter in the marketing department at J.W. Pepper. 

Lyons said Dave Detwiler, a pastor, music history enthusiast and tuba player living in Harleysville, Pa., “approached Pepper with the idea of playing the original Sousaphone in concert for what would likely be the first time in over a century, and J.W. Pepper wholeheartedly agreed.” 

To prepare the instrument to be played, the old sousaphone was delivered to Steve Dillon and Matt Walters of Dillon Music in Woodbridge, N.J. They are “experts in the field of instrument repair and the care of antique instruments,” Lyons said. “Through their hard work, the original sousaphone was returned to perfect playing order.”

Dave Detwiler and Matt Walters

 

“And play it did. In Mr. Detwiler’s able hands, the original Sousaphone joined the Montgomery County (Pa.) Community Band in concert in 2015.”

Famous sousaphone players include the first one to “put on” the instrument, Henry Conrad, a member of Sousa’s concert band. He was a big boy, standing about 6-foot-8, storytellers said.

 

In 1895, Conrad penned a personal note to J.W. Pepper stating: “The sousaphone is admired everywhere and gains in reputation daily. It is in splendid tune and tone and has a wonderful carrying power. It proves an irresistible attraction.”

One notable contemporary female sousaphone player is Jeanie Schroder of the group known as DeVotchKa, which was formed in 1997. Schroder also sings and plays the double bass and flute.

Typically, a brass sousaphone weighs between 30 to 35 pounds. A double bass generally weighs about 25 pounds, while a professional-grade flute weighs a mere 18 ounces.

Can you savor a ‘sonker’ stuffed with sweet potatoes?

Surry County, N.C., is world-famous for its fruit-filled sonker desserts, but the true specialty of local homemakers and bakers here is a sonker stuffed with sweet potatoes.

 

Fred Sauceman, a historian affiliated with East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., specializes in Appalachian studies. “Even some of the most highly regarded books on foods of the American South ignore sonker completely,” he said. 

Sonkers are kin to cobblers and deep-dish pies. 

The sweet potato variety of sonkers is even more obscure, but it’s perfectly logical, when you think about it. The sweet potato is North Carolina’s “official state vegetable.” The Old North State is the largest producer of sweet potatoes in the entire United States.

 

Home gardeners in Surry County were quick to pick up on the fact that “the large, starchy sweet potato tubers that form underground” can be prepared in a variety of ways.” The sweet potato is also good for you, high in vitamins A and C and low in fat. 

Jenni Field of Garner, N.C., has totally bought in. She is the creator of “Pastry Chef Online.” She walks and talks her readers through the entire process of how to make delicious sweet potato sonkers.

She prefers using thin slices of boiled sweet potatoes, rather than mashing them. Her recipe calls for sorghum syrup, extra butter and brown sugar. 

The “milk drip” is the special added touch. “It’s a simple mixture of milk, flour or cornstarch, sugar and a pinch of salt that you bring to a boil, so it thickens. Then add some vanilla,” Field said. 

“Folks in Surry County serve milk dip particularly with sweet potato sonkers,” she said, “but I like it so much, I make it for pretty much all sonker flavors.” 

Carolina Country magazine, published by North Carolina’s electric cooperatives, shared a recipe submitted by Lorene Moore of Dobson in Surry County. To simplify, she suggested substituting a store-bought refrigerated dough for the crust – “Pillsbury Grands! Southern Homestyle Biscuits.” 

Imagine the excitement that occurred in Surry County in 2013, when the “sonker crowd” learned that Kim Severson, national food correspondent at The New York Times, was coming up from Atlanta in search of sonkers.

“The dessert is baked nowhere else in the nation,” Severson said. “But as I tried to get to the bottom of what makes a sonker a sonker, I realized that, as with so many country recipes, definitive answers are elusive.” 

“The sonker…began as a way to stretch fruit that was perhaps past its glory or make use of economical fillings like wild blackberries,” Severson said. She joked that one of her friends called the sonker “a ‘Hail Mary’ for dying fruit.” 

“A big pan of sonker was easy to haul to the church supper or the event in the South known as the ‘covered dish.’ It is less fussy than a traditional round pie.” 

In the end, Severson came up with this definition for her readers: A sonker is: “a soupy, deep-dish baked dessert of sweet potatoes or fruit topped with a crust or a batter. You might have a hard time distinguishing it from a cobbler unless you grew up there.”

 

One who did is Alma Venable, who runs the Mayberry Motor Inn, a 27-unit motel in Mount Airy. She set Severson straight: “You have the violin and you have the fiddle,” she said. “The sonker is the fiddle.”

‘Sonkers’ are Surry County’s claim to dessert fame

For a good time, pack up your spoons and take a unique road trip along the “Surry Sonker Trail” in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley. At every stop, savor the flavor of an indigenous dessert dish known as a sonker.

 

It’s hard to say where the name ‘sonker’ came from, but Marion Venable and the folks at the Surry County Historical Society tell us: 

“Sonker is best described as an ultra juicy hybrid between a cobbler and a deep-dish pie. Since the late 1700s, generations of Surry County people have handed down recipes and tweaked them to suit their tastes, using available fruits of the season.” 

“Sonker comes about by blending fruit and dough, often sweetened with sugar or sorghum cane molasses…and an occasional ‘secret ingredient spice’ of the cook’s preference.”

 

“It can be accompanied by a dip (glaze) made of cream, sugar or molasses, and a few drops of vanilla extract.” (The dip is usually poured over single servings of sonker after they’ve been scooped out of the baking dish onto individual plates.)

 

Let’s start with the filling. Some popular fruits used in sonkers are blackberries, peaches, raspberries, strawberries, apricots, huckleberries, dewberries, cherries, apples, pears, plums and even persimmons. Bakers may also choose to use rhubarb (a vegetable that functions like a fruit).

 

Sonkers have traditionally served the useful purpose of making the most of the fruit crop, especially toward the end of the growing season. Overripe fruit adds to the juiciness. Add sugar or molasses and cook the filling in a pot on the stove until it begins to bubble. 

Now, for the crust. It can either resemble pie dough or be reminiscent of biscuit dough. “Sonkers are a ‘hard times dessert,’” said Sandra Johnson of Mount Airy. “It contains no eggs, which were scarce. If you lived in Mount Airy, you grew up eating sonker. Maybe not the elite city folks, but we country folks sure did.” 

If made from pie dough, then the crust usually lines the sides of a big rectangular pan and perhaps the bottom. Dough for the biscuit version is usually misshapen and baked on top of the filling. 

Freelance writer Andrea Weigl of Raleigh said that Surry County old timers would comment that the dough “was sunk down on top of the fruit,” suggesting that the name “sonker” may stem from a twisted pronunciation of “sunk.” 

The dessert had to be “large enough to feed a big family or farmhands who’d spent the day working in the fields,” Weigl added. “Sonkers are warm, gooey deliciousness.”

 

Dr. Annette Ayers, a Surry County native, who is active in the historical society, suggests that “a wonderful way to get the full experience is at the annual Surry County Sonker Festival” held on the first Saturday of October on the grounds of the historic Edwards-Franklin House in Lowgap, west of Mount Airy. 

Eat some sonkers and enjoy bluegrass and old-time music, flatfoot dancing and exhibits by local quilters.

 

The “Surry Sonker Trail” was organized in 2015 as a heritage tourism project. Eight eateries are currently participating. They are found in the communities of Dobson, Elkin, Mount Airy, Pilot Mountain and Rockford. 

Writing for Our State magazine, Sarah Lindenfeld Hall said the sonker is rightfully “celebrated as a part of North Carolina’s culinary landscape.”