#11078
11/25/2000 9:40 PM
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In writing to a chum about the recent decision of the British student-testing authorities to banish UK spelling in favour of American, I used the clause: "The Saracens are at the gate." My chum wrote back and inquired what I meant and to what I was referring. Oops. There is no language gaffe as good as one which is utterly unintended. I said that I meant that this was a dire situation, a critical event, and a last-ditch defense. I frankly have no idea where this usage arose. Undoubtedly it has something to do with the European occupation of parts of Northern Africa in the Middle Ages. But is it a quote? If so, who said it, when and where? Please respond quickly in order that I may appear to my chum much brighter than I really am.
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#11079
11/26/2000 12:15 AM
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I'm more familiar with "the barbarians are at the gate", which was used as the title of a book (and movie); but I'm drawing a blank on where *that came from....
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#11080
11/26/2000 12:38 AM
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Good clue. I ran down a movie on the Internet Movie Database called "Barbarians at the Gate" (a 1993 film which was made for television), based on a 1991 novel of the same name by Bryan Burroughs. This is nonetheless a reference to a much earlier usage, I am certain.
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#11081
11/26/2000 8:51 AM
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enthusiast
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It is quite familiar to me , we have "Mamma, li turchi" = (help), mother, Turchish (I have no idea of the correct spelling) people are arriving...
I think that I heard something like this with reference to some small town in South Italy, while Saracens where arriving from the sea...
Ciao
Emanuela
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#11082
11/26/2000 12:43 PM
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My maternal grandmother used to use an expression that was similar. When she wanted to say that something was not as serious as we thought, she would say, “Les Sarrasins sont pas à la porte.” (the Sarasens are not at the door).
The Sarasens were the name given to Muslims in the middle ages. Perhaps the expression came about in the age of sea conquests, pirates and privateers when the sea going ships of one religion would, with the blessing and encouragement of their respective countries, invade the ships and port villages of other religious affiliations. I wonder if the Muslims had an expression that went “the Christians are at the door”?
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#11083
11/27/2000 4:54 AM
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I believe the Saracens knew the Crusaders indiscriminately as "Franks" no matter where they actually came from.
Bingley
Bingley
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#11084
11/27/2000 2:29 PM
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About the Saracen knocking at the door
didn't this arise from the last effort of the ottoman empire to invade Europe in 15XX? They planned an surprise attach on the city of Vienna, and were thwarted by the cities bakers, who being up early raised the alarm. "The Saracens are at the gate."
Cresent rolls (croissants) are commemorative, I am told. Honoring the bakers, the hour and the victory.
Where are the history majors when we need them?
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#11085
11/28/2000 2:57 AM
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Our deliberations are much enriched by the Italic perspectve which emanuela brings to them (and to us).
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#11086
11/28/2000 2:58 PM
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member
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#11087
11/28/2000 3:06 PM
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old hand
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>>>Italic<<<
Italian?
Yes indeed, but posher (or at least more archaic). It's where the word for slanty letters came from - they were copying the style from Italy.
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#11088
11/28/2000 3:17 PM
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member
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Thank you for the explanation. I assumed that our good Father would not make such an obvious mistake, but my dictionary gave me no clues. I am always pleased how such a simple question can have such an interesting answer, and how quickly this group can provide it. 
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#11089
11/28/2000 3:56 PM
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Thank you, Shanks, for coming to the defense of the word "Italic" -- a term with a venerable ancestry which, while cognate, does not share the meaning of "Italian."
I offer you a cyber-bouquet, my champion.
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#11090
11/28/2000 8:12 PM
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Re Italics.
In the production (typographic) area of several newspapers at which I worked there was posted prominently a sign : "He who would letterspace Italics would steal sheep"
"Letterspacers" are thin slivers of metal used to spread out letter to make a group of words fit evenly in one line of type. The saying started where real metal type that was set on a linotype was used then set into banks of type then locked into a form before going on the press. However the meaning carried over into the process of "offset" where printing is done from a photographic plate. This is more than anyone wants to know about arcane aspects of italic printing, isn't it? And I've totally forgotten the point I set off to make.
SOME-body stop me !!!
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#11091
11/28/2000 8:38 PM
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enthusiast
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Wow (in my mind you have been Worker of Words),
Why would we want to stop you? One of the things I love about this board is the variety of the postings offered by contributors of different nations, religions, philosophies, occupations, age, interests,... Your insights into the printing world, past and present, are fascinating. How could our discussion of all things wordy ever be complete without acknowledging the importance of getting all those tricky little characters onto paper in the right order and position?
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#11092
11/29/2000 2:07 AM
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wow, I enjoyed your story! And you're just the person (I hope) who can answer this (and, I hope, expand on it): Is it true that the terms "upper case" and lower case" come from the positions of the boxes containing said letters in pre-offset days?
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#11093
11/29/2000 2:45 AM
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AnnaS, I will have to look that one up....offhand it rings a bell but in what regard I'll have to ponder. It has been awhile. Bear with me. Back atcha' soonest.
WOW
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#11094
11/29/2000 3:34 AM
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It is all true. Cold type was stored in a fascinating box called a California type case. The capital letters were kept at the top -- which made them more distant from the type being set -- and the smaller letters at the bottom, as they were used more often. Hence, upper and lower case.
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#11095
11/29/2000 3:38 AM
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Ah Ha I think this is the answer to your u/c l/c question. In the old days there were news cases also known as type cases into which letters were sorted. A pair of type cases, consisting of the cap and lower case were popularly used for news composition in the days before typecasting machines (Linotypes, thank you Mr. Mergenthaler.) Does this clear it up for you? G'night all....it is 23:28 hours EST and Morpheus awaits. WOW
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#11096
11/29/2000 3:44 AM
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Just read the last post before mine....California case sounds as reasonable as my answer. WOW
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#11098
11/29/2000 8:41 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
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"He who would letterspace Italics would steal sheep" My suspicion (but a long time since I read my last book on typography) is that italic types were deliberately based upon handwriting - and therefroe should not (in theory could not) be 'spaced'. It was a long time before I realised that italic types were not merely mechanically slanted versions of the roman fonts. Still longer before I realised that, in theory, there cannot be such a thing as an italic non-serif (or sans serif) face. The things we learn, eh? For what it's worth, my typesetting experiences weren't in journalism, but in advertising, during artwork preparation. Many's the time, at two in the morning, that I have been sitting at the typesetter's whilst he churned out (on a machine now made redundant by AppleMacs) yet another copy variant (justified left and right - so as to give the cut-paste artists nightmares), which we then pasted, dried, and ran with to the processing studio... Back to work at 8 the next morning, of course - but I was younger then and simply thought of it as exciting, not exhausting.
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#11099
11/29/2000 1:38 PM
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VER-ry in-ter-es-ting! (Sgt. Schultz) Thanks Father Steve. It's been awhile since I actually saw a type case. By the way, the well made, wooden boxes even when ink-stained are highly collectable...and handy, too. Wish I had one of the old ones that were thrown on rubbish heaps when papers went, wholesale, to Linotypes. Sigh, WOW
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#11100
11/29/2000 3:48 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
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veteran
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Crescent rolls (croissants) are commemorative, I am toldBrilliant if true Helen! Total news to me. belM - any ideas? Do the sweet-toothed Quebecois have any time for boring old croissants? 
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#11101
11/29/2000 4:44 PM
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Long, long ago on my honeymoon, we did the grand tour--6 countries, 8 cities in 8 weeks.* I actually learned a lot on the trip, since it was my first time to Europe proper (visiting family in Ireland is not the same thing), and beside I was just barely of age (18! a child bride).
In Vienna at the Schoembaum (? I can't even remember how to say it, so spelling is joke) castle we were told the story of the wonderful victory of the Viennese against the infidels, how the bakers had discovered the sneak attach at 4 am or some other ungodly hour and raise the alarm. the crescent roll was a commemorative--each day the Viennese could once again devour their enemies. ( the crescent and the star being the symbol of Islam) It was fitting that the symbol to be devoured was a bread, since it was the bakers who raised the alarm.
When we got to Italy, Sienna, at the cathedral, we saw beautiful fresco's illustrating the victory, in the music room. the year was somewhere about 1500-- but it could have been earlier--(or later) the romantic parts of the story stuck in my mind, not the details.
Over time, its blurred, I now find it hard to think of Muslims as "infidels" --even with some of the religious problems that still exist in Muslim countries-- I can't think of anything that the Muslims have done, that are worse than the Spanish inquisition-- and suspect that the inquisitions ranks as one the worst things ever done in the name of religion.
And as for the crescent roll becoming a croissant, well the there was intermarriage between royal courts, and food moved too.
*London (2 weeks), Amsterdam, Vienna, Florence, Rome, Paris and Dublin, and 3 days in Cork. 6 days in each other city. A day trip to Sienna. Since then I have been back to Ireland, and to London, and off to Tokyo, but not back to the European mainland. I have gotten to see a bit of US, (but my only time in Kentucky was spent at the Nashville airport-- but your home state is on my to-do list Jackie!)
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#11102
11/29/2000 8:23 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
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old hand
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(but my only time in Kentucky was spent at the Nashville airport-- but your home state is on my to-do list Jackie!)
Nashville is in Tennessee.
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#11103
11/29/2000 8:29 PM
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In reply to:
Nashville is in Tennessee.
It can also be found in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and North Carolina.
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#11104
11/29/2000 8:58 PM
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However, last time I checked with the research librarian at UNH there was only one Kennebunkport!
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#11105
11/30/2000 1:17 AM
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It's been awhile since I actually saw a type case
Hmmmm. This brings up a question. When we are drawing up a label we refer to a specific font family (all the letters, numbers, signs etc in that font) as a type case. I understand, from Father Steve's and Wow's posts how it could have arrived at that meaning. Is this term used elsewhere?
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#11106
11/30/2000 8:43 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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When we are drawing up a label we refer to a specific font family (all the letters, numbers, signs etc in that font) as a type case. I understand, from Father Steve's and Wow's posts how it could have arrived at that meaning. Is this term used elsewhere?
As I understand it, yes - almost anywhere that printing is involved: advertising, journalism, publishing etc. These days I've noticed it being used to describe the entire font family - sizes, italics, bold, light etc. Typographers abhor this lax usage, but hey - if it works...
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#11107
11/30/2000 10:34 AM
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veteran
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each day the Viennese could once again devour their enemies. ( the crescent and the star being the symbol of Islam) It was fitting that the symbol to be devoured was a bread, since it was the bakers who raised the alarm.Yep, definitely has the ring of truth about it, Helen. I think it's important to draw a distinction between commemorations and anti-< insert religion or nationality here> movements. Making and eating croissants isn't anti-Islamic any more than celebrating November 5th (which is, incidentally, tied in with the Spanish Armada/Inquisition being "at the gate") is anti-Catholic. These commemorations are definitely standing against all that the religions/nationalities represented at the time of the relevant events - but we would hope that things have moved on since then. 
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#11108
11/30/2000 10:54 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
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veteran
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we refer to a specific font family (all the letters, numbers, signs etc in that font)
>lax usage
Using HTML styles you can assign a "font-family" to particular items or pages or whatever. But in this context you would have something like
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif
If the browser machine didn't have the Verdana font available it would use Arial; if it didn't have Arial it would use whatever sans serif font it happened to have around.
So a font family is whatever the Web developer considers a group of equivalent fonts.
An even more lax usage, shanks!
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#11109
12/02/2000 1:17 PM
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In reply to:
VER-ry in-ter-es-ting! (Sgt. Schultz) Thanks Father Steve. It's been awhile since I actually saw a type case. By the way, the well made, wooden boxes even when ink-stained are highly collectable...and handy, too. Wish I had one of the old ones that were thrown on rubbish heaps when papers went, wholesale, to Linotypes. Sigh, WOW
My trip to parts north kept me out of a very interesting exchange of views, obviously.
I actually have a drawer from a california type case (the "C" in california was never capitalised to my knowledge). And since the california cases held both upper and lower case for anything under (from memory) about 30pt type, "upper case" and "lower case" must have a much older lineage, although the general idea is correct.
The bane of any printing apprentice's existence was having to "dis" the handset type back into the type cases ("dis" being a highly technical contraction of "disassemble"). I did it as an apprentice and journeyman for, ooh, two years on and off. One of my fellow apprentices found it much more convenient to throw the lot out of one of the windows into the scrub behind the building.
Interestingly (perhaps), the linotype moulds for each letter were always called "mats", short for "matrices". I never did work out why. Maybe Merganthaler wanted them to sound more grand than they were. They were always kept in "mat cases". "Dissing" had a slightly different meaning when applied to linotypes - it referred to the mechanical redistribution of the mats back into the mat cases from the disser bar. Damned bar jammed every five minutes on older machines, and the poor muggins operator was constantly getting up and down to clear the jam, the front and back splashes (molten type metal does make a mess) and, in one memorable case, to bash the cam gears (massive, cast iron wheels rotating on a central shaft) back into synch with a piece of four by two ...
Them were the days, all right!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11110
12/04/2000 10:49 AM
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There were actually two sieges of Vienna by the Turks, one in 1529 and the other in 1683. So which one are we talking about here?
Bingley
Bingley
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#11111
12/04/2000 11:10 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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>which one are we talking about here?
For everyday purposes I prefer to refer to the seige of 1529, a more every-day kind of siege. Otherwise I prefer to mention the siege of 1683, such a sad occasion don't you think? I cried for days.
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#11112
12/04/2000 11:42 AM
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But such a relief when it was relieved.
Bingley
Bingley
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#11113
12/04/2000 12:00 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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#11114
12/04/2000 1:06 PM
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But so few people know just how the relief occurred.
Vienna was slowly starving -- another week and they would be forced to surrender to the marauding Turks. But the general officer of a relieving army went twenty miles upstream and released huge quantities of fish into the river. When the fish reached the city, the people were able to haul them in and sustain themselves for that crucial week it took the army to reach them.
Grateful artisans carved a large wall mural to memorialize the general and his ingenuity. It was the first instance in that part of Europe of bass relief.
TEd
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#11115
12/04/2000 3:26 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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Interestingly (perhaps), the linotype moulds for each letter were always called "mats", short for "matrices". I never did work out why.
I can rarely be bothered to look up on-line dictionaries, so this comes off the top of my head. If I remember rightly, a matrix (besides its tabular mathematical use) primarily refers to a medium into which material (or shapes in this case) can be embedded. The contractions to mats is presumably simply jargon.
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#11116
12/04/2000 4:55 PM
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In reply to:
If I remember rightly, a matrix (besides its tabular mathematical use) primarily refers to a medium into which material (or shapes in this case) can be embedded. The contractions to mats is presumably simply jargon.
You're probably quite right. I guess what I meant was, why weren't they called "moulds".
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#11117
12/04/2000 5:19 PM
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... and why california, since this was hardly the world centre of early printing, was it, or was linotype specifically linked somehow?
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