Monday, December 18, 2023

 

Obscurity of the Day: A Yarn of the Nancy B

 



The New York World ad salespeople frequently sold space in the Sunday sections of the 1900-10s, much more often compared with other sections in which ads were pretty uncommon. Those salespeople were not above selling oddly sized spaces, necessitating the use of mini-sized strips to fill the resulting holes. Thus we get this weird little eighth-page strip A Yarn of the Nancy B by Jack Callahan. 

Being pretty strictly a space filler, Callahan didn't beat his brain too hard for material. He came up with the idea of a sailor who gets in trouble due to a sassy talking parrot, and repeats pretty much the same gag with minor variations over and over. The title is a reference to an 1866 W.S. Gilbert poem, "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell", a very funny tale of a cannibalistic sailor ... or at least funny if you can stomach the subject matter. 

The strip sometimes ran in the syndicated version of the World section, sometimes just in New York. According to Ken Barker's New York World index it ran in the flagship paper from September 8 1912 to October 5 1913. It did not run every week but only when an ad necessitated it. 

Thanks to Cole Johnson, who supplied the samples.

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# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM
Comments:
I've never heard of "go hire a hall" before. J. S. Farmer's Americanisms Old and New (1889) explains: 'HALL.—GO! HIRE A HALL—A somewhat peremptory slang injunction—"Begone!" Generally addressed to loquacious bores, being in fact a roundabout way of informing such persons that their room is preferable to their company.'
# posted by Anonymous Whygh : 12/18/2023 1:33 PM
 
I'm familiar with the phrase, and I think Farmer is sort of missing the point. What you're telling the blowhard is that if they feel the need to speechify further, they ought to rent themselves a public venue for doing so, rather than subjecting you to more of their hot air. Obviously you won't be attending their event. --Allan
# posted by Blogger Allan Holtz : 12/18/2023 2:15 PM
 
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