--- title: Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3: «a great invention» and the road on Merrow Down — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3: «a great invention» and the road on Merrow Down», a lesson of the books course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Explain!» shouts the whole Tribe. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / Just So Stories, How the First Letter… # Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 3: «a great invention» and the road on Merrow Down Lesson 86 of the books course of Mova's primary school: 25 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/0/) — Explain!» shouts the whole Tribe. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/1/) — Tegumai says there were no bad people at all, only the poor Stranger-man they are trying to choke. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/2/) — Then Taffy owns up, not feeling very comfy, that she gave him the picture, and her Daddy puts his arm round her. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/3/) — Taffy explains: there was only one spear, drawn three times to make sure; the «bad people» were her beavers; Mummy had her hands up because she would be pleased. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/4/) — Then she tells the whole Tribe they are «just the stupidest people in the world» and orders them to wash the nice Stranger-man. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/5/) — After a long silence the Head Chief laughs, then the Stranger-man, then Tegumai, then everyone, except the ladies, who keep saying «Idiot!» to their husbands. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/6/) — The Head Chief says Taffy has made a great invention which men will one day call writing, though pictures are not always understood. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/7/) — Taffy only wanted the spear, and in the end it is the one spear nobody brought. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/8/) — The Stranger-man is adopted into the Tribe because he was a gentleman about the mud. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/9/) — In the poem, Kipling places the story on Merrow Down near Guildford in Surrey, England, where the river Wey, which Taffy called Wagai, runs. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/10/) — Long before ancient Britons traded there, he says, Taffy and her Daddy had their home on that down. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/11/) — Tegumai to his Tribe: «Can't a man break his carp-spear without the whole countryside descending on him? - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/12/) — You're a very interfering people.» - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/13/) — Taffy: «There wasn't lots of spears. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/14/) — There was only one spear. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/15/) — I drawded it three times to make sure.» «Drawded» is her baby way of saying drew. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/17/) — The laughing goes in order: the Head Chief, then the Stranger-man, then Tegumai «till he fell down flat on the bank», then all the Tribe; Teshumai and the ladies did not laugh. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/18/) — The Head Chief: «It is a great invention, and some day men will call it writing. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/19/) — At present it is only pictures, and ... pictures are not always properly understood.» - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/21/) — His advice: next time «send a man who can talk our language with it, to explain what it means». - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/22/) — The Stranger-man is adopted into the Tribe of Tegumai «because he was a gentleman and did not make a fuss about the mud». - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/23/) — Kipling's last joke, that little girls do not like learning to read and write, is an old idea that is wrong: girls and boys learn to read and write equally well, and many great writers are women. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/25/) — Real life: the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet are true, but they came thousands of years after the Stone Age; the Head Chief could not really have known about them. - [26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/26/) — Real life: the first true writing grew from pictures and counting marks used by traders and temple workers in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago, to keep records of grain, sheep and beer. - [27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/86-justso-first-letter-3-a-great-invention/27/) — Real life: Stone Age people in Britain did not write; writing came to Britain with the Romans, about 2,000 years ago. - ← previous: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 2: the picture goes wrong and the whole Tribe comes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/85-justso-first-letter-2-the-whole-tribe-comes/) - next →: [Just So Stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, part 1: a carp-fish's mouth, a tail, an egg and a snake](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/87-justso-alphabet-1-a-carp-fishs-mouth/) - ↑ back to [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/)