Chapter IX

There is a proverb to the effect that lawyers are bad penmen, but we think the proverb unjust. So far as our experience goes, the handwriting of {p24} lawyers compares favorably with that of any other class of persons, of whatever profession. It is certainly as legible as the mercantile style; since the latter, although generally pretty to look at, is often very difficult to read,—abounding in flourish and ornament, which are too often but another name for obscurity. Sometimes, too, one meets with clerkly invoices or catalogues, containing remarkably fanciful capitals; we have seen good readers scarcely able to decide whether a given initial were a W, an H, or an N. We are pleased to learn, however, that one leading “Commercial College” has introduced a marked improvement in this respect, and now teaches its pupils a plain, legible hand, instead of a mass of overloaded ornamentation made not so much to be read, as simply to be admired.

But members of the bar, like most other persons, dislike the mechanical labor of copying what they have once committed to paper. Their arguments, and especially their briefs, are sometimes sent to the printer in a confused, chaotic mass; in a shape, or, rather, with a want of shape, which, if not resulting from inconsiderateness, would be—we were on the point of saying—disgraceful. A manuscript of this sort, covering but six or eight pages of letter-paper, sometimes requires several hours’ labor in reading, correcting, and revising, before a presentable proof can be obtained.

Legal documents are often interlarded with technical terms in law Latin and old French. Of course such terms ought to be made as plain as print. {p25} Usually the principal divisions of a brief are indicated by large roman numerals in the middle of the line; the points under these greater divisions, by roman numerals at the commencement of paragraphs; smaller divisions, by arabic numerals; and if still smaller divisions are required, these are denoted by letters in parenthesis, as (a), (b), (c), etc. In the haste of writing, however, it is sometimes found difficult, perhaps vexatious, to keep the run of so nice distinctions, and arabic numerals are used throughout, while no proper care is taken to distinguish the various divisions of the subject-matter by varying indentions.[2] The faults of the manuscript reappear in the proof. This leads to much loss of time “at the stone”; and as such work is frequently hurried during the sessions of the courts, the delay is exceedingly vexatious to all parties concerned. If one-eighth of the time now spent in correcting, overrunning the matter, and revising, were bestowed upon perfecting the copy, there would seldom be any delay in a well-appointed printing-office.

[2] We do not mean “indentation” nor yet “inden’tion,” but
“indention,” as written in the text. The word is in the mouth of
every printer, proof-reader, author, and publisher: why should it not
be inserted in the dictionaries?

When transcripts of records of court are to be printed, care should be taken that only the very documents that are intended for the press be sent to the printing-office. For want of proper attention in this matter, it not unfrequently happens that certificates of notaries, extraneous documents, and duplicates are put in type, to be presently canceled. {p26}

We have said something above, touching mercantile handwriting. Constant practice with the pen gives facility and boldness of execution,—and where these are combined with good taste, chirography approaches the dignity of a fine art, and produces beautiful effects, and is seen to be near of kin to drawing and painting. In signatures, especially, flourish and ornamentation have a double use; they please the eye, and they baffle the forger. But when lines stand as near each other as in ordinary ruling, the flourish in one line interferes with the letters of the next; and the elegance of a well-cut capital will scarcely excuse its obtrusiveness, when it obliterates its more obscure but equally useful neighbors.

Further, business men, deeply impressed with the value of time, learn to delight in abbreviations. Types have been cast to meet some of these, as the “commercial _a_” [@] and the “per cent” [%]; but the compositor is sometimes put to his trumps to cut, from German and job letter, imitations of abbreviations which never ought to be sent to a printing-office as copy. We are not astonished that a merchant of Boston once received from a Prussian correspondent a request, that if he, the Bostonian, were to write again, it might be either in German or in good, plain English. We adopt the spirit of this advice; and would say to the banker, the broker, the merchant, and to their respective clerks, that when they write for the press, they should drop ornament, drop pedantic abbreviations, drop German, and write in _plain_ English. {p27}

We do not know that there is anything specially characteristic in copy furnished by the medical faculty, unless it be that their relations of “cases,” both in medicine and surgery, abound, no doubt necessarily, in “words of learned length”; which, being unfamiliar to the laity, should be written with conscionable care; every letter performing its proper function, and duly articulated to its neighbors. But the scientific terms of their art, as written by most physicians, are, to the average printer, as illegible as the Greek from which a portion of such terms is derived. Recipes are seldom got typographically correct, until they have passed through three or four revisions. Even apothecaries, it is said, sometimes put up morphine instead of magnesia; in which case, unless the revising is done in a hurry with the stomach-pump, a jury may have something to say about the “illegibility of the writing.” When troublesome consequences arise from misapprehension of a Latin word, or of its meaning, we hear much said in favor of writing recipes in English.

But, whatever may be said to the contrary, there are weighty, and, we think, irrefutable arguments for continuing the use of Latin and Greek terms in medical writings,—even in recipes. Since it should be so, and certainly _is_ so, we insist here, as elsewhere, that all technical terms, proper names, or any words on which the context can throw but little, if any, light, should be written not with ordinary, but with _cardinary_ care,—which new word we hazard, that our meaning may make a deeper impression. {p28}

In passing, we may remark that the mode of indicating names of remedies comes under the head of “Style” (see Chapter III.), and varies in different offices. Names of medicines are often abbreviated, and set in italics; and when a generic word is used, it should be capitalized; as, “Dr. I. administered _Rhus tox_.” In homeopathic works, the number expressing a dilution or trituration is placed in superiors at the right; as, “Ordered _Cuprum metallicum_^{100}.”

A few suggestions to those who write any kind of copy for the press, will close this part of our subject.

Write on only one side of the paper.

If you wish to make an addition to a page, do not write it on the back of the sheet; cut the leaf, and paste the new matter in, just where it belongs, being careful not to cover up so much as a single letter in doing so: we have known lines to be omitted by the compositor, in consequence of careless pasting. The leaf having thus been lengthened, you may, for the sake of convenience, fold the lower edge forward upon the writing. This minute direction may seem idle; but when a portion of the leaf has been folded backward, out of sight, the folded part may very likely escape notice, and, to insert it, many pages of matter may afterward require to be overrun: we have known such cases.

Abbreviate those words only, which you wish the printer to abbreviate.

Never erase with a lead pencil; for an erasure with lead leaves it questionable whether or not the marked {p29} word is to go in. Use ink, drawing the pen horizontally through the words or lines to be omitted; and be careful that the marking leave off on exactly the right word. If you afterward regret the cancellation, you may write “stet” in the margin, and place dots under the canceled words; but as “stet” may not be noticed, in the presence of obvious erasures, the better way will be to re-write the passage, and paste it in the place you wish it to occupy.

Take time to write plainly and legibly. In writing for the press, the old adage holds good,—“The more haste, the worse speed”; and for every hour you save by writing hurriedly, you will be called upon to pay for several hours’ labor in making corrections. Write joinhand: mistakes often arise from a long word being broken up, as it were, into two or three words.

I and J are often mistaken for each other. Either imitate the printed letters, or uniformly carry the loop of the J below the line.

It is often impossible to distinguish Jan. from June, in manuscript, unless the context furnishes a clew.

Whatever may be the divisions of your work (as books, chapters, sections, cantos, and the like), let your entire manuscript be paged in the order of the natural series of numbers from 1 upward. If you commence each division with 1,—as is sometimes done,—and two or three divisions are given out as “takes” to compositors, it is obvious that portions of one division may exchange places with those of another; and, further, if leaves happen to become transposed, they can readily be restored to their right {p30} places if no duplicate numbers have been used in indicating the pages.

Make sure that the books, chapters, etc., are numbered consecutively. The best proof-reader must confess to some unguarded moments; and it would be very awkward, after having had two hundred and forty chapters stereotyped, to find that two chapter V.’s have been cast, that every subsequent chapter is numbered one less than it should have been, and that compositor and proof-reader have exactly followed copy.

Examine your manuscript carefully with reference to the points. Avoid the dash when any other point will answer your purpose. A manuscript that is over-punctuated occasions more perplexity than one that is scarcely pointed at all.

Before sending it to press, get your manuscript into a shape you can abide by. Alterations made on the proof-sheet must be paid for; and, further, matter that has undergone alterations seldom makes a handsome page: some lines will appear crowded, others too widely spaced.

In writing a footnote¹ let it immediately follow

¹ In many works the footnotes, by a slight change of arrangement, might advantageously become a portion of the text.

the line of text which contains the asterisk, or other reference-mark; just as you see in the above example, and do not write it at the bottom of the manuscript page. The person who makes up the matter will transfer such note to its proper place.

If you feel obliged to strike out a word from the {p31} proof, endeavor to insert another, in the same sentence, and in the same line if possible, to fill the space. So, if you insert a word or words, see whether you can strike out, nearly at the same place, as much as you insert.

When writing for the press, never use a lead pencil. Let your copy be made with black ink on good white paper. We have been pained to see the checkered pages of a report to an extensive religious association, which report had been in the first place wholly written with a lead pencil: then words canceled, words interlined, various changes made,—and all these alterations done with pen and ink. Of course, sleeve and hand rubbing over the plumbago gave the whole a dingy and blurred appearance. The effect of the ink sprinkled among the faded pencilings was so much like that of mending an old garment with new cloth, that the manuscript had an unchristian, nay, even heathenish aspect. However, from this copy the report was printed,—let us charitably hope that it did much good in the world.

If proof-sheets present peculiarities of spelling and language, such for instance as appear in ancient works, and which are affected or indulged in by some moderns, every word whose correctness he doubts and is unable to verify, should be referred by the proof-reader to author or editor. The latter, familiar with the terms used, may consider some queries frivolous or puerile; but an author should appreciate conscientiousness in the reader, and be glad to have {p32} all doubts settled before his work reaches the eyes of reviewers.

That Dr. Johnson was guilty of harshness toward a proof-reader is not to be wondered at; but it is a matter of wonder that his conduct appears to have been approved by other editors. In J. T. Buckingham’s edition of Shakspeare (1814) is, at page 915, a remarkable note, apologizing for a few “trifling errors,” and adopting as an excuse a quotation from an advertisement “from the first edition of Reed, 1793”:

He, whose business it is to offer this unusual apology, very well remembers to have been sitting with Dr. Johnson, when an agent from a neighboring press brought in a proof sheet of a republication, requesting to know whether a particular word in it was not corrupted. “So far from it, sir,” (replied the Doctor with some harshness,) “that the word you suspect, and would displace, is conspicuously beautiful where it stands, and is the only one that could do the duty expected from it by Mr. Pope.”

Dr. Johnson’s assumption that the agent _would displace_ the word, seems to have been wholly gratuitous. The employees of the neighboring press did precisely what they should have done,—what every conscientious proof-reader often feels obliged to do. If suspected words were passed without questioning, there would be many errors of the press which would justify some show of “harshness” toward the neglectful “agent.”

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