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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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A "disser bar"--interesting name! Explain if you have time, please. When a line of type has been cast, the matrices which formed it - the individual letter matrices and spacebands - have to be "put back" where they came from so that they can be reused. This is carried out by the distribution (disser) system. The best thing to do is to have a look at this link: http://www.woodsidepress.com/LINOTYPE.HTMLThe pictures are very good, and they and the text will do better than I can. When I said "retired", I meant "have died". Most of the operators I knew are now well planted.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Hey, thanks; that cleared things up to where I know that I don't know s--t about linotype machines! I have lots more questions, but I guess they aren't really appropriate for here. BUT--(yep, there always is one, isn't there?) I did find the term "Justifying Spacebands", and that reminded me of what to me is an unusual use of the word justify. To me, justification is the giving of reasons for something. For ex., I justified making this post by asking about a word. I've never known, really, why the term is used to mean how words are spaced on a page, or screen.
Oh, heck--I have to put my main question, anyway.(!) I had sort of thought that a linotype machine does actual printing. I was very surprised to read that lines are cast into metal! Are these, er, slugs if I got the term right, then taken somewhere else, and laid out somehow so that pages can be printed from them? And, are they recycled?
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,725 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,725 Likes: 2 |
an unusual use of the word justify
Every time you use your word processor you use justify in exactly that sense.
The standard format is "left-justified:" all lined up at the left margin. You can make it all line up at the right margin instead if you want to (right-justified), or center every line (center-justified), by clicking on a "button" on a menu bar, or perhaps by the older method of highlighting some text and then typing control-R, control-L, or control-E (as in cEnter).
When linotype machines were in use, or even earlier when type was set by hand (anyone remember the California job case?), you had to put in spacers to make all the lines come out the same length. There would be spacers between words or letters, and also between lines and paragraphs, for horizontal and vertical justification, so that the type would one rectangular block that could be set into the printing press. See our previous discussion of "coigns," by whichever spelling!
Actually we still do this, even with computerized typesetting. That's what's responsible for the all-too-frequent funny-looking appearance in your daily newspaper when they had to use a lot of spacers for long words in short lines.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
an unusual use of the word justify
Every time you use your word processor you use justify in exactly that sense.
Yeahbut®, why the word justify? You don't have to justify why you want the text lined up in a particular way--you just do it. You set it. You align it. You make it even. You make it match. Etc., etc., etc.
If your boss questions your judgment, you might have to justify why you've set it a certain way, but I still don't see why the word justify came to be used in reference to lining up text.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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why the word justify?
I think you probably just need to adjust your etmylogical alignment here, aJ ;)
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"I once ate a mology". 
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh boy, Jackie! Whew! Where to start.
To make it easy just think of justify/justification as newspaper jargon.
The columns of type set on a linotype were put into page-size cases and the page was laid out in those cases with headlines, photos (steel engravings)included by a make-up man (all men in my day.) As a beginning reporter I sometimes checked the Women's Pages as they were being made up. If there was a story in type that didn't fit the page the story was cut by removing the type from the bottom of the story. Hence the typical pyramid style of news writing :the most important information in first graph, exposition following in order of precedence. After the page was made up the form was locked and sent off to the printers.
Sometimes if a line was a tiny bit short - to make it all nice and justified - or to avoid a ridiculous hypenation - a slim piece of metal was placed to space out the words. These small pieces of metal are called (letter) spacers.
It was fine to letterspace regular type but a big no-no for italic letter. Hence the sign seen in many old makeup areas :
"He who would letterspace italics would steal sheep."
Hi CapK!
Oh, and just to keep it interesting for whomever was checking the pages, the page faced the make-up man so the reporter/editor had to "read" the page upside down and backwards!
This skill has come in very handy now and then!
I went to an ATEX school when we first went to computers in newspapers and about two days in to the course I was ready to cry with frustration but was saved by two Scots who were there to learn the whole system ... when they learned that I had worked in hot type they explained a computer builds bfrom the bottom up just like when the lead was pouring into letter forms.
Now, is that more than you needed to know?
Aloha!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Ok, thanks; now I know that a linotype machine doesn't do the actual printing. hot type Hot, because of the molten metal, I'll bet.
But I still don't see the need to use the word justify, when all it's talking about is how to arrange the print.
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
>But I still don't see the need to use the word justify, when all it's talking about is how to arrange the print.
You spoilin' for a glory there, Mrs F.?
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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>But I still don't see the need to use the word justify, when all it's talking about is how to arrange the print.
oh boy, I hope I'm not too late. your problem, as I see it, is that you're trying to justify two somewhat disparate current senses of quite an old word. the original sense (a. 1300) of justify, from L. justificare (do justice to), was to try as a judge, to judge; to have jurisdiction over, rule, control, keep in order; to do justice to, treat justly -- this usage is now obsolete. not too much later (a. 1500) another sense was to make exact; to fit or arrange exactly; to adjust to exact shape, size, or position -- this sense is now used only technically; i.e., as type-founder's or printer's jargon. the connection between these senses seems a bit more clear: imposing control or order.
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