A Netter From The Leditor
II

Well, the printing was crisp. Proteus: Volume 38, Issue 11, although not explicitly designated on its cover, is but a moment in history, complete in its imperfection. Onward!

I was pleased that so many of you took me up on my invitation to draw to my attention to the numerous typos in last month’s letter. As an Editor, I am apparently quite the bungler. Your participation speaks volumes to a critical eye and a high expectation of excellence in publishing.

Yet, my newly found awareness that DVM has some accomplished spellers and grammarians in its membership, one of the most satisfying feelings for me that came out of last month’s Proteus was that of anticipation. From the moment I sent Proteus to the publisher to the moment that each Proteus was delivered, I had a near consuming feeling of anticipation. Who would write in, what will they find hidden in Proteus? Who will expose allusions, references, codes, puns and word games? The anticipation grew the entire month, until... absolutely nothing happened!

I can only surmise from the level of participation that Mensans do not like games. No one cared to explain the title of this series: A Netter from the Leditor. Perhaps that one was too easy, not enough of a challenge. Of course, the "L" in what should have been "A Letter from the Editor" was misplaced. However, any editor worth his salt would know that leaving the title as "A Etter from the Leditor" is just poor grammar. "A Etter"? Come-on. Everyone knows that the correct limiting modifier to use in front of a word beginning with a vowel is "an" not "a". Hence, it becomes "A Netter from the Leditor" after taking the liberty of attaching the "n" to "editor" instead of to "a" for purposes of cadence and pure silliness. Perhaps that one was too simple.

H-1? Apparently, you all know what "H-1" was. You must also know all about John Harris, the Department of Longitude, and the £1 million prize offered by Parliament in the early 1600s to anyone who could accurately measure Longitude, an measure that had eluded sea-farers and impeded ocean travel since the beginning of, well, sea-faring. Additionally, you must also have realized the purpose of my placement of "H-1" in that certain paragraph as in juxtaposition to numerous references to the "stars" in the context of "steer(ing) by the stars". Perhaps, I choose the wrong and all too accepting audience for thinly veiled flattery. Not all stars are bright after all. But getting back to John Harris, you all would have known that his competition came exclusively from the astronomers who in their turn ultimately developed the sextant in 1628 A.D. You also would have known that Mr. Harris was such a perfectionist that he continued to improve upon his "H-1" or "H(arris)-1" machine until he ultimately developed "H-4" or what we all commonly know as "the pocket watch." All this transpired in the 17th C, all this transpired in one of the shortest paragraphs in my column- How mundane!

Finally, on page 2 of last issue in the left hand column there appeared an eagle, and the words "Proteus AS-19" Under which appeared "Proteus Crew," and "Contact USS!" I think that this page is traditionally referred to as "The Masthead," but I am now uncertain. Someone wrote in to tell me that I had misspelled "US" as in "Contact Us." As it turns out, the "USS" Proteus was a US Naval submarine tender commissioned in January 1944 and decommissioned in July 1992. IX-518. Its insignia was an eagle identical to the one that appears on page 2 of last month’s issue, and whose ship identification was AS-19. Some of you might find this web site of interest:
www.mississippi.net/~comcents/tendertale.com/tenders/119/119.html.

What do you say we give it another shot?