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Take a hundred lines!

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topic icon Author Topic: Take a hundred lines!  (Read 2534 times)

crashryan

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Take a hundred lines!
« on: January 01, 2016, 04:03:15 AM »

I've been bingeing on Schoolgirl's Picture Library and I need help from a speaker of English English (as opposed to our American variety). Tyrannical head girls punish our heroines by having them "take 50 (or some other number) lines." From the artwork I presume they're obliged to write 50 lines of something, but what exactly? Do they write a sentence like "I will not make noise" fifty times over? Or are they supposed to write a 50-line essay about something? Or maybe to copy 50 lines from a book?

Any help the Silent Three can offer will be appreciated.
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MarkWarner

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2016, 08:26:57 AM »

The phrase "take 50 lines" I have not heard .. but I would have assumed that it is the old write 50 lines "I must not talk in class" like Bart Simpson does ... but now you got me wondering ...
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narfstar

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2016, 04:43:29 PM »

Curious minds want to knw
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paw broon

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2016, 03:20:56 PM »

I think the particular expression comes from English public schools - which means fee-paying schools as opposed to state schools.  it's an old expression and if you had read your Bunter stories, you'd have found it long before this ;)
I was at a Scottish state senior secondary school in the '60's ( just before comprehensive schools came in) and lines were one of the punishments, always better than the tawse.  You had to write out 50 or 100 times, or whatever came up the teacher's humph, "I will not talk in class"  I will do my homework" etc. Sometimes it was worth the lines if you could wind up a teacher you didn't like ;D
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crashryan

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2016, 02:06:34 AM »

Thanks for the clarification, Paw. I figured it was something like that. The USA version of the punishment was writing sentences on the blackboard after school. In rare instances, if the teacher determined public humiliation was necessary, you'd have to do it in front of the class. That wasn't a particularly efficient use of class time, however. This sort of punishment still existed when I was in grade school (the late 1950s) but it was more often seen in cartoons and TV shows than in real life.

Similarly "corporal" punishment. I always disliked that term. It sounds like you're beating a foot soldier. Anyway, during my grade school years spanking (usually with a paddle custom-made by its user) was still permitted, but it was rare and considered the domain of a few loose-cannon teachers. By the time I left high school in the late 60s most states had outlawed the practice.

I realize it's dangerous to draw conclusions from comics, but school story papers give me the impression that beatings were an integral part of the English education system.

I missed the "lines" up 'til now because I haven't read many of the boys' school stories. I never warmed to them. The boys are combative and behave like jerks to one another (like real boys), and too many stories concern sports, a subject that never interested me.

To tell the truth, between the real world and contemporary media I have become so surfeited with violence that it's comforting to dip into the fantasy world of the girls' comics, where the stakes are much lower and everyone (except the Mean Head Girl, of course) treat each other with a modicum of respect. It's rather pathetic, really. I  haven't yet sunk to the level of embracing "Pet Club" stories, so maybe there's still some backbone left in me.
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JonTheScanner

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2016, 06:15:30 AM »


Similarly "corporal" punishment. I always disliked that term. It sounds like you're beating a foot soldier. Anyway, during my grade school years spanking (usually with a paddle custom-made by its user) was still permitted, but it was rare and considered the domain of a few loose-cannon teachers. By the time I left high school in the late 60s most states had outlawed the practice.


Actually according to Wiki, by the late 60s exactly one state had outlawed corporal punishment in public schools.  New Jersey did so in the 1800s. The next state to do so was Massachusetts in 1971. It is currently legal in all states in the Old Confederacy and a number of others (30 of 50).  School districts and local policy make it illegal in more schools. It is illegal in private schools only in two states.
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paw broon

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2016, 11:17:00 AM »

I mentioned Bunter because I'm a huge fan and although there is a lot of corporal punishment in many stories,
many other Greyfriars stories, the adventure ones and Christmas mysteries, are simply good entertainment.  Give them a go.
As for sports stories, British comics have so many football (soccer) stories and titles. You can also find a lot of cricket, athletics, speedway (dirt track), ice hockey and more.  And in girls' comics, skating, skiing, hockey.
Sport is pulled into adventure stories e.g. The Wolf of Kabul has the hero's sidekick armed with a cricket bat or "clicky-ba'"  Stereotypes? I'll give you stereotypes! You can read the first part here:-
http://www.britishcomics.20m.com/wolf.htm
Between sport and war, it almost seems like national obsessions.  I dislike both genres. 
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crashryan

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2016, 06:54:53 PM »

I stand corrected, Jon. My claim about outlawing corporal punishment was based on that least reliable of all sources, memory. I do know that by the time I left high school in 1967, in the various school districts where we lived spanking was something that Was Not Done.

Somehow I'm not surprised that the Old South still permits corporal punishment. It was in Alabama that my brother, who would have been seven, was thrashed with a rubber hose for smarting off to a teacher. I don't know whether that incident improved his life any. Maybe it's what turned him into an early IT professional.
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mr_goldenage

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Re: Take a hundred lines!
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2016, 01:30:29 AM »

I went to catholic school from 1st grade to 11th grade and that sort of punishment and more was still active in those institutions.....high school would cut your hair/facial hair if it did not meet school standards. I graduated High School in public school in 1974 and there was no such things like that there...thank God. These are my "fond" memories of catholic school.

Richard Boucher
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