Scouting, Volume 60, Number 6, September 1972 Page: 14
104, [76] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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NO
TAMING OF
THIS
SHREW
BY JACK DENTON SCOTT
I am not about to play the idiot
game and trade words with the
greatest wordsmith of all, Wil-
liam Shakespeare, but I do take ex-
ception to what he and several
other old writers did with a word,
thus making it part of our vocabu-
lary. That word is "shrew." In
Shakespeare's The Taming of the
Shrew, he left no doubt as to what
he thought a shrew was: a nagging,
scolding woman.
An ancient scribe, describing a
woman he liked least of all, said,
"She was a shrew in the kitchen, a
saint in the church." Thus, a house-
wife hypocrite. Another writer de-
scribed a shrew as "A snappish
bawd that would bite off a man's
nose with an answer."
Much as I admire the minds be-
hind these words and am amused
with the philosophy, as I see it, a
shrew is far from being a sort of
dyspeptic housewife, full of snarl
and natter. Only one word can de-
scribe a shrew: monster. Shakes-
peare and the others notwithstand-
ing, may I attempt to prove my
point? I'd like to describe the
drama that convinced me of this
in two acts.
Act I: It is late November in
rural Connecticut. Snow has fallen
lightly, but the morning sun blazed
it away, and the ground under the
bird feeder is clear. Feed has been
sprinkled for the ground feeders,
and they are there: the juncos look-
ing as if dressed in formal attire,
the smoky-gray, cheery chickadees,
the bold jays in their brilliant blues
and lavenders.
14
My cat Shan sat in on the horror show—shrew V5. mouse.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 60, Number 6, September 1972, periodical, September 1972; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353553/m1/18/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.