Chapter I: Writing for the Press

In an action recently brought against the proprietors of Lloyd’s paper, in London, for damages for not inserting a newspaper advertisement correctly, the verdict was for the defendant, by reason of the illegibility of the writing.

“The illegibility of the writing” is the cause of the larger portion of what are conveniently termed “errors of the press.” One can scarcely take up a periodical publication without finding, from editor or correspondent, an apology for some error in a previous issue, couched somewhat in this style: “The types made us say, in our last, something about the ‘Dogs of the Seine’, we certainly wrote ‘Days of the League.’” We have no doubt that, in a large majority of cases of this sort, if the question between “the types” and “the pen” were left to a jury, they would, as in the case of Lloyd’s paper, decide in favor of the types.

By dint of hard study, by comparison of letters in {p16} various words, and by the sense of the context, the compositor generally goes through his task creditably, in spite of the “illegibility of the writing.” But sometimes, in despair, he puts into type that word which most nearly resembles an unreadable word in the manuscript, making nonsense of the passage because he can make nothing else of it. We remember a great many instances of this sort, in our own experience as a proof-reader,—instances which, according to custom, might be attributed to “the types,” but which were really due to the writers’ carelessness alone. Thus, in a medical work, it was stated that “This case had been greatly aggravated by the _ossification_ of warm poultices to the face”; the author having intended to write “application.”

Ames’s “Typographical Antiquities” has been made to figure as “Typographical Ambiguities,”—owing to chirographical ambiguity.

“The reports in the ‘Times’ and other journals, never give the name of the Lord Chandler.” “Chancellor” was, of course, intended by the writer, but this was an “error of the press.”

In an investigation touching the field of a compound microscope, a witness was made to say, “It would vary with the power of the _lye-juice_ employed.” The reporter meant to write “eye-piece,” but he succeeded in writing what the compositor set up.

The title of a book,—“A Treatise on the Steam-engine; with _Theological_ Investigations on the Motive Power of Heat.” The latter clause might seem appropriate to “Fox’s Book of Martyrs”; but the {p17} transcriber of the title imagined he had written “Theoretical.”

A toast,—“The President of the —— County Agricultural Society,—May he enjoy a _grim_ old age”: the word was corrected to “green,” before the whole edition of the paper was worked off.

We have seen an advertisement of “_Mattlebran’s_ Universal Geography,”—no doubt a very entertaining work.

In a treatise on botany, we have been told, “we first find those that form the bud, then the _calx_, the _corrola_, the stamina and _pistol_.” The writer should have spelled correctly, and dotted his _i’s_.

A catalogue of hardware to be sold by auction had an item, “3 bbls. English pocket-knives.” This was set from “commercial” writing, in which “bbls.,” or something like it, was used as a contraction for “bladed.”

“Nature intended man for a social being. Alone and isolated, man would become _impatient_ and _peevish_.” No doubt this is true, but “the types” were to blame again,—the author fancied that he had written “impotent, and perish.”

The constitution of a certain corporation appeared with the following article in the proof-sheet: “The Directors shall have power to purchase, build, equip or charter all such steamboats, propellers, or other vessels, as the engineers of the Corporation shall in their judgment require.” Why the Directors should be placed at the mercy of the _engineers_ seemed unaccountable. But a critical examination of the {p18} manuscript revealed that the “engineers” were “exigencies.”

A “Bill of exceptions, having been examined, and found _unfavorable_ to the truth, is allowed.” The Justice who signed the above, understood the word which we have italicized to be “conformable.”

“They could not admit those parts of the testimony until they had examined the plaintiff in regard to the _poets_,”—“facts” should have been written instead of “poets”; but the “pen” made an error which the compositor did not feel at liberty to correct.

We have read in a newspaper a description of a battle-field:—“It was fearful to see: the men fell in ranks, and marched in _pantaloons_ to their final account.” This was explained by an erasure and a blot on the word “platoons.”

It is very easy to say that errors of the kind we have recited, are owing to the ignorance or carelessness of the printers; but, on the other hand, when printed copy is reset, such errors almost never occur,—and the absence of errors is in direct ratio to the legibility of the copy.

Men who write much, generally imagine that they write well; but their imagination is often a vain one. The writer of the worst manuscript we recollect to have met with, expressed surprise when told that printers and proof-readers could not read his writing, and remarked that he had often been complimented on the plainness and neatness of his chirography. His memory was, no doubt, excellent,—the {p19} compliments must have been bestowed in his juvenile days, when he was imitating engraved copies.

While one is imitating a copy, he may, indeed, write legibly, nay, even elegantly; for he has nothing to attend to, save the formation of the letters. But when one is writing a report or a sermon or a poem, his mind is busy with something besides chirography.

The fact is, that men seldom succeed well in doing more than one thing at a time. The itinerant musician who imitates the various instruments of a full band, may be detected in an occasional discord. Paley remarks that we cannot easily swallow while we gape; and, if any one will try the experiment, he will presently be satisfied that in this statement, at least, Paley was physiologically and philosophically correct.

Thus, in the haste of composition, ideas crowding upon us faster than the pen can give them permanence, we can bestow little thought on mere chirography, writing becomes mechanical, or even automatic; and we pay scarcely more attention to the forms that follow the pen, than we do to the contractions and dilatations of the vocal organs when engaged in conversation with an entertaining friend.

Let school training and practice be the same, yet such are the differences of physical conformation that handwritings are as various as the individuals that produce them; running through all degrees of the scale, from an elegance transcending the engraver’s skill, down to misshapen difficulties and puzzling deformity. {p20}

But however widely our handwriting may vary from Wrifford, Spencer, or Dunton, it is generally legible to ourselves, and soon becomes familiar to our friends and acquaintances. Hence comes the danger that we shall cease to bestow any care upon it when others than ourselves and acquaintances are concerned, and hence it is, that, with scarcely any consciousness of our shortcomings, we are liable to impose on an utter stranger the task of deciphering a piece of manuscript in which not only the letters have no proper characterization, but which is smutched with erasures, deformed by interlineations, and obscured by frequent and needless abbreviations.

The loss of time spent in endeavoring to read such a document, is reckoned among the “small things” of which “the law takes no cognizance”; were it otherwise, many of us who fancy that our manuscript is above reproach, would be astonished at the number of bills collectible outstanding against us.

The opinion of the “statists,” spoken of in Hamlet, that it is “a baseness to write fair,” seems prevalent even in our day. Most men, on leaving school, instead of endeavoring to improve their chirography, allow it to deteriorate, and seem to take pride in its deteriority, and many learned men write as if afraid that legibility would be considered a proof of intellectual weakness.

In all other cases of encroaching on the time and patience of another,—as, for instance, our failure to fulfill an appointment, or calling at an unseasonable hour, or seeking advice in an affair wholly our {p21} own,—we feel bound to make due apology, nay, sometimes even acknowledge a sense of shame; but who ever felt regret on hearing that he had put some one to the trouble of studying, and guessing at, a puzzling intricacy of cramped writing; his victim being obliged to seek aid from dictionaries, gazetteers, directories, and even experts? We never heard of a man’s suffering compunction on this score.

We say this, referring to ordinary business transactions between man and man, where bad writing, except in rare and extreme cases, does not involve pecuniary loss. But when we are writing for the press, our duty to write legibly becomes imperative; indeed, a failure in this respect trenches so closely upon a violation of the eighth commandment, that it can seldom happen but from a want of thought as to the relation between those who write and those who print.

Compositors usually work by the piece, and are paid a fixed rate per thousand ems. If a line of type be divided by vertical lines into equal squares, these squares show the number of ems in the line. Suppose there are twenty such squares; then fifty lines would contain one thousand ems. To set, correct, and distribute six thousand ems, is considered a fair day’s work. With plain, legible copy, this can ordinarily be done; and, at the close of the week, the compositor receives full wages; all parties are satisfied, and no one is entitled to complain.

But if, at the end of the week, notwithstanding the closest application, the compositor has averaged {p22} but four thousand ems per day, whereby he receives but two-thirds of the sum he is capable of earning under favorable conditions, who is morally responsible to him for the lacking third? We need not go far to ascertain: a glance at his “copy” answers the question. He has been laboring upon bad manuscript. To show the difficulties which have been in his way, we will put a supposititious case,—closely paralleled, however, in the experience of almost every compositor who has worked in a book-office.

He has been setting up a sermon of the Rev. Mr. Z. The society of the reverend gentleman were so well pleased with the discourse, that they requested a copy for the press. Mr. Z. should, of course, have copied the whole manuscript fairly; for, the haste of composition being past, he could have re-written it carefully, paying especial attention to chirography, spelling out his abbreviations, reducing dislocations, bringing interlineations into line,—in short, he should have done to the compositor what he would that the compositor should do unto him. But, instead of this, what did you do, Mr. Z.? Pen in hand, you re-read the sermon, making erasures, striking out some words and interlining others. You crowded new sentences, of two or three lines each, between lines already closely written; and you interlined these interlineations. You then wrote sundry additions on loose pieces of paper, denoting them as “A,” “B,” “C,” etc., and then placed the same capitals in the body of the work, without sufficiently explaining that new matter was to be inserted; {p23} neither did you make it appear whether the addenda were to constitute new paragraphs. And in this amorphous condition you allowed the sermon to go to the printing-office. It has, too, passed through several hands. Some of the pieces belonging to “A” have got into “B,” and some of the “B” have straggled into “C,”—and the printers cannot say where they do belong.

One compositor finds in his “take”[1] the abbreviation “Xn,” and, after many inquiries, learns that _X_ is the Greek _Chi_, and so “Xn” signifies “Christian.” Another hesitates at a phrase which, to his eye, seems to read “a _parboiled_ skeptic”; but as modern methods with heretics do not include heated applications, he asks those about him what the word is; perhaps goes to the proof-reader with it,—such things are done sometimes,—for the compositor expects ultimately to conform to the proof-reader’s decision,—and thus he loses five or ten minutes in learning that the word is _purblind_. Now, reverend sir, the compositor’s time is his money, and if you rob him of his time—the inference is obvious. Your better course, henceforth, will be to copy your manuscript, or employ some one to copy it, in a careful, painstaking manner, after all your emendations of the text have been made.

[1] For this and all other technical terms used in this work, see