Chapter IX: Technical Terms Used in This Work

CASE. A frame divided into boxes, or compartments, for holding types. The upper case contains capitals; the lower case, small letters.

CHAPEL. An association of workmen in a printing-office.

CHASE. An iron frame in which the pages of matter are locked up.

DOUBLET. A portion of a take repeated by the compositor. For instance: “It is of no use to lament our misfortunes, of no benefit to grieve over past mistakes.” Suppose the compositor to have set up as far as the second “no” inclusive,—he then glances at his copy for the following words, but his eye catches the _first_ “no,” and he resets what is already in his stick. Of course the proof will read thus: “It is of no use to lament our misfortunes, of no use to lament our misfortunes, of no benefit to grieve over,” etc.

FORM. The pages of matter inclosed in the chase.

GALLEY. A frame which receives the contents of the composing-stick. When the stick is full, it is emptied upon a galley.

IMPOSE. To lay the made-up pages of matter on the stone, and fit on the chase in order to carry the form to press.

INDENTION. The blank space at the beginning of a common paragraph, or of a line of poetry, etc. When the first line is not indented, while the following lines of the paragraph have a blank space before them, the paragraph is said to be set with a “hanging indention.”

_Specimen of Hanging Indention._

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in
General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same.

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JUSTIFY. To insert spaces between the words of a line of type, so that the line shall exactly fit the width of the stick.

_To_ LOCK UP A FORM is to drive quoins (wedges) in such a manner as to hold the type firmly in the chase.

_To_ MAKE UP is to adjust the matter in pages of equal length, as nearly as may be, for imposition.

MATTER. Types set up, so as to form a word or words. When it is to be distributed (put back into the cases), it is known as “dead” matter. If not yet printed, or if destined for further use, it is called “live” matter.

OUT. A portion of a take, accidentally omitted by a compositor. An “out” is generally referable, as in the case of the “doublet,” to the recurrence of some word, or sequence of letters. For instance: a take had in it, “He injured his foot, by wearing a tight boot.” The proof had, only, “He injured his foot.” The compositor had the whole sentence in his mind; and having set the final letters “oot,” referred these to the last word, “boot,” and thought he had set the whole sentence.

QUÆRE, or QUERY, variously abbreviated, as _Qu._ _Qy._ or _Qr._, and sometimes represented by an interrogation point, is written in the margin of the proof-sheet, to draw the author’s attention to some passage about which the proof-reader is in doubt.

REVISE. The second proof is a revise of the first, the third is a revise of the second, etc. _To_ REVISE is to compare the second, or any subsequent proof, with a preceding one, to see whether the proper corrections have been made.

SHOOTING-STICK. A wedge-shaped piece of wood for tightening and loosening the quoins that wedge up the pages in a chase.

SIGNATURE. A letter or figure at the bottom of the first page of every sheet. It denotes the proper order of the sheets in binding.

SPACE. If a line of type be divided by vertical planes into exact squares, each of these squares occupies the space of an _em_, or _em-quadrat_. Ems are used to indent common paragraphs, and to separate sentences in the same paragraph. {p204} The next thinner space is the _en_, or _en-quadrat_, which is one-half of the em. The next is one-third of the em, and is called the _three-em space_; next, one-fourth of the em is the _four-em space_; then, one-fifth of the em is the _five-em space_. Thinner than any of these is the _hair-space_. The three-em space is generally used in composition; the other sizes are needed in justifying.

STICK (COMPOSING-STICK). A frame of iron or steel, in which the compositor sets up the type. By means of a movable slide, it can be adjusted to the required length of line.

STONE. A table of marble, or other stone, on which forms are imposed, and on which they are placed for correction.

TAKE. That portion of copy which the compositor takes to put in type (or “set up”) at one time.

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