offtopic: Pseudo-Sostenuto/Trivia

[Susan Kline]

"enginerrring" -- I _love_ it! Closely related in etymology to my old-time
favorite, "errmail", denoting wrongly addressed, ill-advised, or stuttering
electronic communication.

Examples of all three (two from yours truly, blush): 1. You send your buddy
your favorite mildly salacious quote from Shakespeare, and, mysteriously,
"pianotech@byu.edu" has invaded the top line. 2. You take the word "rabble"
from a post and add the word "corporate" to it. 3. You wait two hours for
your post to pianotech to appear, and when it doesn't, you send it again,
whereupon both arrive simultaneously.

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At 08:28 AM 9/24/97 -0400, you wrote:
>
>In a message dated 9/24/97 3:47:13 AM, you wrote:
>
><<"64-dollar question for JB: who invented the bass sustain pedal?">>
>Thomas A. Cole RPT
>Santa Cruz, CA>>
>
>Tom;
>  Rumor has it that it was a piano salesman named Spiff Price-Point, one of
>Aeolian's star sales force.
>  Supposedly it was invented during the sharp decline of player and
>reproducing pianos after the advent of widespread radio usage.  Having a hard
>time selling pianos with just two pedals after customers were used to seeing
>three, sometimes four, Spiff invented the "linked pedal assembly".
>  The linked pedal assembly consisted of a three pedal assembly configured so
>as  the middle pedal did exactly the same thing as one of the other two.
>( a variant of the linked pedal assembly was one where the middle pedal had a
>spring, to pop it back up, but did absolutely nothing.)
>  Aeolians enginerrring department decided that the sales force having to
>answer "to seperate the other two pedals" was not a refined reflection of
>their skills and decided a change must be  made.  Spiff went back to work, as
>a consulting fellow for the enginerrring department.  The split damper rail
>and the bass sustain rail was the result of Spiff's efforts.
>  Sorry this answer was so long but I wanted to be sure and get all the
>"correct" information in there.  Well that's the rumor although personally I
>believe the split damper rail precedes Spiff's time. :-)
>Jim Bryant (FL)
>
>

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com