Now that I watched the cartoon, I believe the script does say Pica.
There are other twists like a reunion on the second floor of a one-story shop, so flipping a screaming headline font for the tiny stuff used for classified ads makes sense here.
I’ve talked to some captioners before. Especially for older stuff like this, I understand they’re almost always left to try and figure it out on their own. So the only thing that could be better is that they have more experience working out unknown words.
Back to the sandwich for a moment, if I may: I used to eat at a restaurant when I was young that served Monte Cristo sandwiches covered with hollandaise sauce. And because I was young and had a powerful metabolism, I scarfed them up joyously with no concern for either weight gain or the insane richness of a thousand calories of cheese and meat and bread and eggs and oil hitting my stomach all at once.
Ah, to be young again.
That’s like no British accent I’ve ever heard. That sounds distinctly American to my ears.
Yeah, it sounds just like some kind of formal American accent to me (like a politician or radio presenter might have used)
You are both right, it’s not a British accent, it’s American. I wrote that back when I thought he was saying “packer” and dropping the “r” to say “packah”. Little did I know at that time, he was saying “Pica.”
Roger Ramjet was not part of the Rocky lineup. Wrong brand.
I’ve been wrong all this time.: (
Upon multiple listenings of the clip I am sure the narrator says “Pica.” I am equally sure that no one involved in the writing or the production process really cared much, except that maybe the word “Pica” might sound vaguely newspaper-ish to the average viewer.
Remember, this is the same show that stipulated the key ingredient for rocket fuel was mooseberries.
Wha-a-at?! You mean to tell me that the key ingredient for rocket fuel is not mooseberries?
This is making me re-evaluate my education at Whatsamatta U!
I searched for “black pica” on Google Ngrams and found a number of cases where “black pica” was used less as a literal description of a particular font and more of a form of synecdoche representing something typed:
After all, no writing task should be too small for a person who can will hoot owls to appear and disappear at the whisk of a pen. The excrutiating ectasy of transforming gray matter to black pica – this has been my definition of writing since tenth
Out of curiosity I unfolded the paper which was plain , unlined , torn , I imagined , from a memo pad , and on which had been typed in neat black pica : X + Y = XY abc -a = bc XY + bc = Severus The only distinguishing marks were the plus signs
Here is that white envelope I folded , hopeful as a spinster ’ s linens , the friendly black pica of my very own name typed by me , my eager spittle under the sober head of each stamp . My poems , who are so shame - faced as you greet me
A son of a pioneer , a daughter , a still - born , a stranger , a townsman taken irrevocably in a sturdy prime , would look their last from black pica borders with “ John Sharton , Funeral Director " as the ultimate line in the advertisement until old …
It looks like you’ve solved this! Good work!
From your last example, it appears that “black pica” can also mean “printed” as well as “typewritten.”
I had not heard about Google Ngrams until you mentioned it. Interestingly, the second highest peak in the Ngram Viewer occurred around 1960, which is just a bit before “The Guns of Abalone” aired (1962-63 season). (The highest peak was circa 1900.)
Well, others did most of the heavy lifting!
Ngrams is a lot of fun, but you have to take the usage graphs with a big grain of salt. One problem is that their dataset is pretty distorted. A huge percentage of the source material comes from journals, catalogs, reviews, compilations, and the like. Probably because libraries have immense collections of that stuff and there are few to no copyright issues.
Another problem is that they don’t distinguish by usage. A bunch of the references were to the bird pica hudsonia. In other cases, “black pica” did refer to typed text, but was a more literal usage, such as one where a ballot was required to be printed in black pica. Still, that’s useful information–it might indicate the origin of the metaphor.
In any case, it’s pretty good for this sort of thing as long as you drill down into the results to eliminate false positives.
Excellent work
Yes, the ngrams can be misleading. But the examples they turn up can be eye-opening (as in this case).
As you pointed out, one common usage of “black pica” was a requirement for printing or typing – eg, “all paperwork must be submitted in black pica” (or words to that effect). This may reveal a possible extra shade of meaning to “in black pica” (used idiomatically) as “correct,” “accurate,” or “factual.”
Rocky and Bullwinkle are, of course, Americans (residing in Frostbite Falls, MN). Dudley Do-Right, et al, are from Canada. Boris and Natasha are from Pottsylvania. R&B crash-landed on the Rock of Gibraltar, which is under British dominion.
I was interested in this thread, but had missed the explanation @Dr.Strangelove provided. Major kudos. I now see how “packa” could be an idiosyncratic (or regional or sloppy) pronunciation of “pica.” And I can sorta remember instructions for manuscript submissions that specified black and specified pica (rather than elite). Doubled spaced, of course.
That also brings to mind blue typewriter ribbons, and ribbons that were half red and half black (with the red up top I think). I forget how the red stripe was accessed, but remember that using all red typing for manuscripts or business correspondence was a faux pas,
Typewriters have a lever to select the colour desired, and I think red was for showing negative amounts in bookkeeping or for emphasis in text.
Although both the pica as in pica vs elite on a typewriter, and the pica as a measurement, are both very small. Way too small for a headline.
A pica is one sixth of an inch. If you hear “This is set in a 12-point font”, it’s 12 points to a pica, 6 picas to an inch.
That headline would be measured in points… probably a 96 point font.
There have been only four times in the history of the newspaper that they’ve used 96 point font size for the front page headline . This is the largest font size ever to be used for a New York Times headline .
(Grossly simplified from ‘the classical typography’ version. But if you want a lecture on why 12-pt type really isn’t 12 points tall, I’ll have to charge tuition)