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Posted By: wwh pied type - 03/30/03 02:54 PM
Franklin describing hard work setting type:
"But so determin’d I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, when, having impos’d my forms, I thought my day’s work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and compos’d it over again before I went to bed;"

pi
n.,
pl. pies 5see PIE26
1 a mixed, disordered collection of printing type
2 any jumble or mixture
vt.
pied, pie4ing or pi4ing to make jumbled; mix up (type)

As slang, as a college prank to play a practical joke on
another student, such as short sheeting his bed, or filling it with furniture from other rooms. My room-mate
nailed my shoes to the floor, and put a bottle of ink with string intended to pull cap off, but it didn't fool me.
With help, I put so much furniture into his room, so that he couldn't open door wide enough to get in, then I went out window, with string attached to latch, so I could lock the window from the outside. Bare essentials of a long story. College humor.



Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu Re: pied typer - 03/30/03 05:19 PM
did you end up paying the piper for that one?

Posted By: wwh Re: pied typer - 03/30/03 05:43 PM
My room-mate had to break a pane in his window to get into his room. So he climbed up ond over the roof to my side, and smashed ten panes of glass in my window, then went an complained to proctor that I had so trashed is room he couldn't study, might fail upcoming exams, and loose his scholarship. While he was doing this, my friends helped me unpie his room, so that when proctor came up to inspect, all he could see wrong
was poor pathetic me shivering with cold wind coming in my brplem windows, nad broken glass all over my floor. He gave me achance to recite the things Powelson had done to provoke me, and chided Powelson. But the College charged ten dollars per pane to fix windows, which would have equalled a quarter of the yearly tuition in those days. I managed to fix the widows myself with only a jack-knife and screw driver. The panes had been set with white lead, which was as hard as granite. I used ordinary putty. I have often wondered how long it was before my cheap putty job fell apart. I was lucky to get away with it.

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