The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by

Annie Proulx

Tert Card Character Analysis

Tertius “Tert” Card is the managing editor for Jack Buggit’s Gammy Bird newspaper when Quoyle begins working there. Tert is an acerbic, unhappy man who bosses the other newspapermen around and has a drinking problem. He rewrites articles at will, sometimes to introduce the Gammy Bird’s characteristic typos and malapropisms, but other times because he disagrees with the reporter’s opinions. Tert hates his life in northern Newfoundland, and he longs to escape, preferably to Florida. Eventually, he finds work editing newsletters for the oil industry and moves to St. John’s, leaving his wife and children behind in Killick-Claw.

Tert Card Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Tert Card or refer to Tert Card. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7: The Gammy Bird Quotes

“Yes. Incredible protection from plagiarism. Every sentence so richly freighted with typographical errors that the original authors would not recognize their own stories. Let me give you some examples.”

[…]

Tert Card scratched his head and looked at his fingernails. “After all, it’s only a stolen fiction in the first place,” he said.

“You think it amusing now, Quoyle, you smile,” said Nutbeem, “although you try to smile behind your hand, but wait until he works his damage on you. I read these samples to you so you know what lies ahead. ‘Plywood’ will become ‘playwool,’ ‘fisherman’ will become ‘figbun,’ ‘Hibernia’ become ‘hernia.’ This is the man to whom Jack Buggit entrusts our prose. No doubt you are asking yourself ‘Why?’ as I have many dark and sleepless nights. Jack says Card’s typos give humor to the paper. He says they’re better than a crossword puzzle.”

Related Characters: B. Beaufield Nutbeem (speaker), Tert Card (speaker), Quoyle , Jack Buggit
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:

“Now, what I want you to do. I want you cover local car wrecks, write the story, take pictures. We run a front-page photo of a car wreck every week, whether we have a wreck or not. […]

“And the shipping news. Get it from the harbormaster. What ships come into Killick-Claw, what ones goes out. There’s more every year. I got a hunch about this. We’re going to play it by ear. See what you can do.”

“Like I said on the phone,” said Quoyle, “I haven’t had much experience with ships.” Car wrecks! Stunned with the probabilities of blood and dying people.

“Well, you can tell your readers that or work like hell to learn something. Boats is in your family blood. You work on it. And fill in where Tert Card tells you.”

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Jack Buggit (speaker), Petal Bear , Tert Card, Ed Punch
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17: The Shipping News Quotes

“All right, then,” said Buggit, “This is what it is. This little piece you’ve wrote and hung off the end of the shipping news—”

“I thought it’d perk the shipping news up a little bit, Mr. Buggit,” said Quoyle. An unusual boat in the harbor and—”

“‘Jack,’” said Buggit.

“I don’t have to write another one. I just thought—.” Reporter Licks Editor’s Boot.

“You sound like you’re fishing with a holed net, shy most of your shingles standin’ there hemming and hawing away.” Glared at Quoyle who slouched and put his hand over his chin.

“Got four phone calls last night about that Hitler boat. People enjoyed it. […] Course you don’t know nothin’ about boats, but that’s entertaining, too. So go ahead with it. That’s the kind of stuff I want. From now on I want you to write a column, see? The Shipping News.”

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Jack Buggit (speaker), Tert Card, Guy Quoyle , Ed Punch
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25: Oil  Quotes

“I seen the cod and caplin go from millions of tons taken to two or three bucketsful. Seen fishing go from seasonal, inshore, small boats to the deep water year-round factory ships and draggers. Now the fish is all gone and the forests is cut down. Ruined and wrecked! No wonder there’s ghost here. It’s the dead pried out of their ground by bulldozers!”

The fish plant man got a word in. “They used to say, ‘A man’s set up in life if he’s got a pig, a punt and a potato patch.’ What do they say now? Every man for himself.”

“That’s right,” said Billy. “It’s chasing money and buying plastic speedboats and snowmobiles […] It’s hanging around the bars, it’s murders and stealing. It’s tearing off your clothes and pretending you’re loony. It used to be a happy life here. See, it was joyful. It was a joyful life.”

Related Characters: Billy Pretty (speaker), Quoyle , Tert Card
Page Number: 199-200
Explanation and Analysis:

Quoyle was incensed, some well of anger like a dome of oil beneath innocuous sand, tapped and gushing.

“This is a column,” bellowed Quoyle. “You can’t change somebody’s column, for Christ’s sake, because you don’t like it! Jack asked me to write a column about boats and shipping. That means my opinion and description as I see it. This”—he shook the paper against the slab cheeks—“isn’t what I wrote, isn’t my opinion, isn’t what I see.”

“As long as I’m the managing editor,” said Tert Card, rattling like pebbles in a can, “I’ve the right to change anything I don’t think fit to run in the Gammy Bird. And if you don’t think so, I advise you to check it with Jack Buggit.” Ducked under Quoyle’s raised arms.

And ran for the door.

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Tert Card (speaker), Jack Buggit , Ed Punch
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35: The Day’s Work  Quotes

“What do you think, get a new slant on the home page? Can call it ‘Lifestyles.’ See, Billy and me been knocking this ’round or a couple of years. There’s two ways of living here now. There’s the old way, look out for your family, die where you was born, fish, cut your wood, keep a garden, make do with what you got. Then there’s the new way. […] Go off to look for work. And some has a hard time of it. Quoyle, we all know that Gammy Bird is famous for its birdhouse plans and good recipes, but that’s not enough. Now we got to deal with Crock-Pots and consumer ratings, asphalt driveways, lotteries, fried chicken franchises, Mint Royales coffee at gourmet shops, all that stuff. Advice on getting along in distant cities. Billy thinks there’s enough to make the home section a two-page spread.”

Related Characters: Jack Buggit (speaker), Quoyle , Dennis Buggit , Beety Buggit, Billy Pretty , Tert Card
Page Number: 285-286
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Shipping News LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Shipping News PDF

Tert Card Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Tert Card or refer to Tert Card. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7: The Gammy Bird Quotes

“Yes. Incredible protection from plagiarism. Every sentence so richly freighted with typographical errors that the original authors would not recognize their own stories. Let me give you some examples.”

[…]

Tert Card scratched his head and looked at his fingernails. “After all, it’s only a stolen fiction in the first place,” he said.

“You think it amusing now, Quoyle, you smile,” said Nutbeem, “although you try to smile behind your hand, but wait until he works his damage on you. I read these samples to you so you know what lies ahead. ‘Plywood’ will become ‘playwool,’ ‘fisherman’ will become ‘figbun,’ ‘Hibernia’ become ‘hernia.’ This is the man to whom Jack Buggit entrusts our prose. No doubt you are asking yourself ‘Why?’ as I have many dark and sleepless nights. Jack says Card’s typos give humor to the paper. He says they’re better than a crossword puzzle.”

Related Characters: B. Beaufield Nutbeem (speaker), Tert Card (speaker), Quoyle , Jack Buggit
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:

“Now, what I want you to do. I want you cover local car wrecks, write the story, take pictures. We run a front-page photo of a car wreck every week, whether we have a wreck or not. […]

“And the shipping news. Get it from the harbormaster. What ships come into Killick-Claw, what ones goes out. There’s more every year. I got a hunch about this. We’re going to play it by ear. See what you can do.”

“Like I said on the phone,” said Quoyle, “I haven’t had much experience with ships.” Car wrecks! Stunned with the probabilities of blood and dying people.

“Well, you can tell your readers that or work like hell to learn something. Boats is in your family blood. You work on it. And fill in where Tert Card tells you.”

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Jack Buggit (speaker), Petal Bear , Tert Card, Ed Punch
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17: The Shipping News Quotes

“All right, then,” said Buggit, “This is what it is. This little piece you’ve wrote and hung off the end of the shipping news—”

“I thought it’d perk the shipping news up a little bit, Mr. Buggit,” said Quoyle. An unusual boat in the harbor and—”

“‘Jack,’” said Buggit.

“I don’t have to write another one. I just thought—.” Reporter Licks Editor’s Boot.

“You sound like you’re fishing with a holed net, shy most of your shingles standin’ there hemming and hawing away.” Glared at Quoyle who slouched and put his hand over his chin.

“Got four phone calls last night about that Hitler boat. People enjoyed it. […] Course you don’t know nothin’ about boats, but that’s entertaining, too. So go ahead with it. That’s the kind of stuff I want. From now on I want you to write a column, see? The Shipping News.”

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Jack Buggit (speaker), Tert Card, Guy Quoyle , Ed Punch
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25: Oil  Quotes

“I seen the cod and caplin go from millions of tons taken to two or three bucketsful. Seen fishing go from seasonal, inshore, small boats to the deep water year-round factory ships and draggers. Now the fish is all gone and the forests is cut down. Ruined and wrecked! No wonder there’s ghost here. It’s the dead pried out of their ground by bulldozers!”

The fish plant man got a word in. “They used to say, ‘A man’s set up in life if he’s got a pig, a punt and a potato patch.’ What do they say now? Every man for himself.”

“That’s right,” said Billy. “It’s chasing money and buying plastic speedboats and snowmobiles […] It’s hanging around the bars, it’s murders and stealing. It’s tearing off your clothes and pretending you’re loony. It used to be a happy life here. See, it was joyful. It was a joyful life.”

Related Characters: Billy Pretty (speaker), Quoyle , Tert Card
Page Number: 199-200
Explanation and Analysis:

Quoyle was incensed, some well of anger like a dome of oil beneath innocuous sand, tapped and gushing.

“This is a column,” bellowed Quoyle. “You can’t change somebody’s column, for Christ’s sake, because you don’t like it! Jack asked me to write a column about boats and shipping. That means my opinion and description as I see it. This”—he shook the paper against the slab cheeks—“isn’t what I wrote, isn’t my opinion, isn’t what I see.”

“As long as I’m the managing editor,” said Tert Card, rattling like pebbles in a can, “I’ve the right to change anything I don’t think fit to run in the Gammy Bird. And if you don’t think so, I advise you to check it with Jack Buggit.” Ducked under Quoyle’s raised arms.

And ran for the door.

Related Characters: Quoyle (speaker), Tert Card (speaker), Jack Buggit , Ed Punch
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35: The Day’s Work  Quotes

“What do you think, get a new slant on the home page? Can call it ‘Lifestyles.’ See, Billy and me been knocking this ’round or a couple of years. There’s two ways of living here now. There’s the old way, look out for your family, die where you was born, fish, cut your wood, keep a garden, make do with what you got. Then there’s the new way. […] Go off to look for work. And some has a hard time of it. Quoyle, we all know that Gammy Bird is famous for its birdhouse plans and good recipes, but that’s not enough. Now we got to deal with Crock-Pots and consumer ratings, asphalt driveways, lotteries, fried chicken franchises, Mint Royales coffee at gourmet shops, all that stuff. Advice on getting along in distant cities. Billy thinks there’s enough to make the home section a two-page spread.”

Related Characters: Jack Buggit (speaker), Quoyle , Dennis Buggit , Beety Buggit, Billy Pretty , Tert Card
Page Number: 285-286
Explanation and Analysis: