Too Specific Exorcism No Good

An exorcism is always pronounced at the beginning of the lunch hour concerts:

Ladies and gentlemen may I ask you all to please turn off your mobile phones.

It works, for mobile phones, but it's far too specific, if you ask me. Take today for instance. Marija Bajalica was playing Haydn's Piano Sonata No 38 in F on the piano. How hard would it have been to have added this exorcism before she began:

In the name of the father the son and the holy ghost don't hum please, amen.

Because we were plagued during the entire first movement by a hummer.

And another even stranger spirit had entered the hall untroubled by an exorcism. I saw evidence of this spirit as Marija played Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques. These are a series of variations each more moody than the last, except for the last.

I was watching the hands of Marija, which were long and catlike. I was sad because I couldn't see the tips of her fingers, due to the angle at which I was sitting.

I looked idly down at the floor under the seat of the man in front of me. I saw a square of light, illuminating stiletto marks in the wood, and 2 faint lines where the floorboards joined. Suddenly there appeared in the lower half of the square of light, as though performing on a tiny stage, the shadows of the tips of 3 fingers dancing rhythmically to Marija's etude.

What could they have been but the spirits of Marija's hidden fingers, and how easily could their escape have been prevented?

In the name of the father son and holy ghost keep your hands to yourselves amen.

Short Exorcisms

So, I was wondering, what was the exorcism that was printed in the children's hornbooks? And I googled up some pictures and discovered it was this: In the name of the father and the son and the holy ghost amen.

And I thought, that's not an exorcism. That's just shorthand for an exorcism. And then I remembered last night.

We went to the Annual Hawke Lecture in the Adelaide Town Hall. Professor Ross Garnaut was to lecture on Climate Change. But before the lecture could begin there was an exorcism to perform.

We were exhorted to stand up. We stood up. The governor, his wife and entourage marched with admirable speed through the grand doorway down the central aisle to their positions in the front row. A recording of The Governor's Salute was played.

The Governor's Salute is like two fingers up. The first bar of the national anthem and the last. The effect of this upon the audience is a kind of bafflement, mingled with relief.

& Ampersand

Yes Pliny, but aren't all transformations unlikely? Nevertheless, I know that this is true.

And how, pray, do you know that it is true?

Because, Pliny, I read it , not in Wikipedia but in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

Perhaps, then, it was a fable.

No, it is a phrase, which was found in the old hornbooks, I said primly. The character was added after the 26 letters of the alphabet, and was called ampersand as a corruption of 'and per se and'. The ampersand itself is an adaptation of 'et', which as you know means 'and' in Latin.

Nonsense, said Pliny. How do you get from 'et' to that squiggle?

You don't have to. You only need to get from the squiggle back to 'et'.

A good point. And what may I ask is a hornbook?

It's a thin board with a handle, as a backing to a sheet of vellum, and covered by a thin piece of transparent horn. Medieval schoolchildren used them for their lessons.

How delightful, said Pliny. Was anything else written in them?

Numbers, the Lords Prayer, and an exorcism.

Basic, and exemplary, said Pliny.