- A Poem of the Black Art - Annotated
- "What would we know, for better or worse, Of the Long Ago if it were not for verse?"
- - Oliver St.John Gogarty 1878
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- One hundred years ago poetry was a well established
feature of the printing trade publications. Printers wrote poems to express their feelings, to tell stories, or to spoof some aspect of their jobs. Many were in praise of the the printer's trade. "Inland Printer" magazine was one that featured poems.
- The following is a modern rendition of the tradition.
The attempt has been made to use the appropriate letterpress terms in the admonishment to an assistant. See how much you understand without the interpretation.
- Warnings to the devil
- Be careful of the type you choose,
- You must always mind your p's and q's!
- Nuts and mutts fill out your stick.
- Keep your eye on the nick!
At the bank a standing form. - To the stone smooth and worn.
- Furniture, cuts, quoin and key,
- Tools of the trade - a necessity.
On the turtle, ready for makeup! - Proof the galley and lock it up!
- Riglets, leads, slugs and block,
- Put to bed at ten o'clock!
If you're out of sorts, refill the case! - Dump the type in the chase!
- A set measure in nonparallel!
- Pi the form and it'll wind up in hell!
- The use of the word "devil" in the title hearkens back to the
- early European Renaissance when Gutenberg's former partner, Faust, tried to pass off printed bibles as hand copied ones. He was caught and the Church scribes,either out of superstition or fear of competition, branded the new process as the devil's trade or "the black art." The poor printer's assistant was called the printer's devil and even the handle of the press was "the devils tail."
Your mother probably admonished you to "mind your p's and q's". Some attribute this expression to a barkeeper's pints and quarts, but it was the wrong reading letters that plagued the printer. Letters such as lower case, p, q, b, and d as well as cap O and numeral 0 were often confused. They were called "demon" letters (another link for the black art).
"Nuts" and "mutts" were the shop slang for the quad spaces used by the typesetter. The "mutt" or em space was a blank space, the square of the point size of the type. The "nut" or en space was one half of an em and the width of a number, so it was also called a "figure space". Somewhere in time, the en and em were called "nut space" and "mutton space." Presumably, this was to clarify misunderstanding of similar sounds in a noisy composing room. Then "mutton" was shortened to "mutt."
The stick was the compositors hand tool for assembling lines of type. It was held in the left hand, and the right hand was used to "pick" the type and place it in the stick. More than one printing poem has used the verse, " Pick and click goes the type in the stick."
Hand set type had a "nick" or groove running along one side of the body. Each font had a different nick position so wrong font letters could be spotted. Also, letters that were placed in the composing stick incorrectly aligned were easily spotted.
The "bank" was a sloping rack on the back of the type cabinet where the cases of type were stored. This is where the typesetter would place the case and stand and set type. A "standing form" was the name given for a job already set and ready to be reprinted. It was sometimes saved in a metal tray called a galley. "Form" was the name given to the assembled type page or the plate on the press. To say a job was "standing" was a reference to the bottom of the the type body being called the "feet". To put a job to bed was - to lock it into the bed of the printing press.
Lines of machine cast type were called "slugs". The extra spacing was called "leading" because it was accomplished by placing thin lead strips between the lines of type.
After the job was set the type was moved or "dumped" to the "stone" where the "lockup" or final page assembly would take place.With large forms the move was first to a heavy cart called a "turtle." The stone was originally a smooth rock surface and later it was replaced with metal. Here, the compositor or "stoneman" would "makeup" or assemble the elements of the job. Engravings, called cuts, were combined with type positioned by the use of wood or metal strips called "furniture". The thinnest ones were called "riglets". The job was arranged inside of a metal frame called a chase. An expanding wedge called a quoin was used to hold it in place. A wooden block and mallet was used to tap down the type to the stone. A wrench to tighten the "guoin" was called a" key".
The sorts were spaces. The job of the printer's devil was to fill the sorts boxes. The typesetter was paid by the amount of type set. When he was "out of sorts" production was slowed and presumably he was not in that great a mood.
- To "dump type" was to move it. More than one novice printer was ordered to "dump the type" and really did! A "measure" was another name of line length. Non-parallel was a 6 point type size in the day when type sizes had names. Size names sometimes were superlatives such as "brilliant," "paragon" or "nonpareil" for "no equal."
- Pi letters were odd or unusual types or printer's ornaments used in typesetting. A printer's Pi could also be a jumble of type such as if it were spilled. To "Pi" a type form was the ultimate accident, meaning the job would have to be reset. The pile of useless Pi would be thrown into the "hell box" to be melted down and reused. (Yet another devilish association for the printer).
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Copyright (C) 1997 by Frank Granger
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