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With the help of the Army & Navy Munitions Board, Stanley coded every kind of U.S. defense machine (about 4,000). There were just enough letters in the alphabet to fit 26 classes of machine, from A for boring to Z for miscellaneous. More specific descriptions (size, type, etc.) were assigned letters too. DAB, for example, means D for milling machine, A for knee-type, horizontal, universal, B for No. 2 light-type-all of which is plain English to the man who owns one. The other four basic facts are similarly keyed with numerals and other letters...
Once the code is set up, a prime contractor translates into it the parts of his job he wants help on. The U.S. Census Bureau's Hollerith machines take this alphabet soup and turn it into a directory. Thumbing this directory to see where his machines belong, a would-be subcontractor can then write the prime contractor (whose name is also coded) for detailed plans, make a firm bid for the work...
...These are days when good nutrition takes on a new importance. It's downright patriotic to know your vitamin alphabet . . . and to see that your three meals . . . are well balanced. America must be strong -Americans must be strong...
This behavior fits none of the most hallowed formulas, whose Greek and Roman letters now lie tumbled about like a child's alphabet blocks. Faced with the need for elaborate rebuilding of formulas, Physicist Darrow exults: "To have come on a fluid like this is like finding unexplored land in the midst of an ancient community, or a tract of primeval prairie among the cornfields of the Middle West...
...ALPHABET HICKS-Rex Stout-Farrar & Rinehort ($2). Clever alibi-busting by wily ex-lawyer detective clears up murders in a plastics laboratory near New York. Hicks is a worthy addition to the Stout sleuth-stable (other occupants: Nero Wolfe, Tecumseh...