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Some Graphic-Arts Trivia
to Entertain You
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Bored, curious, can't sleep?
Maybe this will help fill the time.
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Click below for more about these trivia facts…
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| Ever wonder why we should "mind our p's and q's"... |
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| p's and q's [pl.n.] |
| 1. Socially correct behavior; manners.
2. The way one acts; conduct: was told to watch his p's and q's.
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From: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
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| There are several theories about the origin of this axiom... |
| One popular explanation comes from the world of printing, during the early days of moveable type [see illustration below]. Each letter and line of text had to be placed individually on the printing press. This tedious process had to be done in reverse [type was set left to right, spelling normally, but upside-down], so the text would imprint onto the paper in a readable fashion.
Because of the similar shape of the lowercase letters 'p' and 'q,' the printmaker or typographer had to be very conscientious in placing them. If not careful, one letter could easily be swapped for the other. Hence, chastising someone to "watch his / her p's and q's" came to mean "pay attention to your conduct."
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Moveable Type
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| Wood or metal [lead] letters were 'set' in a handheld composing stick and then placed on the press bed. Each individual letter was fashioned like the 'H' below. The typesetter had to learn to read in reverse, as in the right-hand portion of the illustration. |
Illustrations by Judith Leslie © 2006
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| Notice how the p's face left and q's right, the opposite of the way they turn out on the yellow page to the left. |
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The long spacing strips between the lines of text were made of lead alloy. This is where we get the term 'leading' [rhymes with heading] to indicate the vertical spacing between lines of type [from baseline to baseline]. It is also known as line spacing.
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Capital letters were stored in the upper portion of typecases [divided drawers for keeping the type organized], and subsequently became known as upper-case letters. |
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Sources: http://www.en.wikipedia.org; www.answers.com/typesetting;
http://www.briarpress.org; http://www.otal.umd.edu
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| Another popular theory comes from... |
| "Mind your pints and quarts" when bartenders kept tally of their customer's drinks by marking down the number of pints and quarts consumed [with 4 pints equalling a quart]. |
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| Rounding out the hypotheses, and according to Mark Israel... |
| This expression, meaning "be very careful to behave correctly," has been in use from the 17th century on. Theories include: an admonishment to children learning to write; an admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with their tarred 'queues' [pigtails]; "mind your prices and quality;" "mind your pieds and queues" [either feet and pigtails, or two dancing figures]; the substitution of 'p' for 'qu' [kw] in the speech of uneducated ancient Romans; or the confusion by students learning both Latin and Ancient Greek of such cognates [words related in origin] as 'pente' [number 5 in Greek] and 'quintus' [number 5 in Latin]. And yes, we've heard the joke about the instruction to new sextons: "Mind your keys and pews." The most plausible explanation is the one given in the Collins English Dictionary: an alteration of "Mind your 'Please's and Thank You's'." |
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Adapted from: Mark Israel's AUE FAQ [alt.usage.english FAQ]
with addition of some definitions from www.answers.com
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| Always ominous...the dreaded DEADLINE... |
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...and why we should be afraid, very afraid
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| dead•line [n.] |
| 1. A time limit, as for payment of a debt or completion of an assignment.
2. A boundary line in a prison that prisoners can cross only at the risk of being shot.
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From: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language on www.answers.com
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| ORIGIN: United States | Civil War | 1864 |
| It began as a real line, drawn in the dirt or marked by a fence or rail, restricting prisoners in Civil War camps. They were warned, "If you cross this line, you're dead." To make dead sure this important boundary was not overlooked, guards and prisoners soon were calling it by its own bluntly-descriptive name, the dead line. An 1864 congressional report explains the usage in one camp: "A railing around the inside of the stockade, and about twenty feet from it, constitutes the 'dead line,' beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass."
Nothing could be more emphatic than 'dead line' to designate a limit, so we Americans happily applied the term to other situations with strict boundaries. For example, the storyteller O. Henry wrote in 1909 about crossing "the dead line of good behavior."
But it was the newspaper business that made deadline more than just a historical curiosity. To have the latest news and still get a newspaper printed and distributed on time requires strict time limits for those who write it. Yet many are the excuses for writers to go beyond their allotted time: writers' block, writers' perfectionism, or just plain procrastination. Perhaps the writer is a deadbeat [1863] ... another dead word invented by Americans during the Civil War. Seeking the strongest possible language to counter these temptations, editors set deadlines, with the implication that "Your story is dead ... you are dead ... if you go beyond this time to finish it."
Our urgent 21st century has made such deadlines essential not just for reporters and other writers, but in every kind of activity. There are deadlines for finishing a job or assignment, for entering a contest, for ransoming hostages, or for buying a product at the special sale price.
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Andersonville was one of the largest of many Confederate military prisons established during the Civil War. In 1998, the National Prisoner of War Museum opened there, dedicated to the men and women of this country who have suffered captivity. Their story is one of sacrifice and courage. [www.nps.gov/ande]
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Adapted from Houghton Mifflin Company on www.answers.com [http://www.answers.com/deadline]
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With heartfelt respect for these victims, their families, and ancestors ...
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Although deadlines can sometimes seem a matter of life and death,
hopefully none of us will have the misfortune to suffer the fate
of those for whom the term became a daily ... and tragic ... fact of life.
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| To freelance, or not to freelance… |
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| free•lance [n.] |
| 1. A person who sells services to employers without a long-term commitment to any of them.
2. An uncommitted independent, as in politics or social life.
3. A medieval mercenary.
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| free•lancer [n.] |
| 1. Self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. |
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From: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language on www.answers.com
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| ORIGIN: Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe | Written in 1819 [set in 12th century England] |
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The Accolade
by Edmund Blair Leighton
[1853 - 1922]
Adaptation by Judith Leslie © 2006
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet [14 August 1771 – 21 September 1832] was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe during his time. In some ways, Scott was the first author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers all over Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, Australia, and North America.
Free lance was first coined by Sir Walter Scott in his well-known historical romance Ivanhoe to describe a "medieval mercenary warrior."
The phrase later transitioned to a figurative noun around the 1860s, then officially recognized as a verb in 1903 by various authorities in etymology [e.g., Oxford University]. Only in modern times has the term migrated into a noun [a freelancer], various verb forms [a journalist who freelances], and adverb [she worked freelance].
The word's etymology was apparently invented by Sir Walter Scott, the 19th-century poet, to refer to a medieval mercenary, a "free lance," a knight who was not attached to any particular lord, and could be hired for a given task.
Adapted from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer; Wikipedia on www.answers.com [http://www.answers.com/freelancer]
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