The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1891-11-28
ERRORS IN PRINT.

!
Mem Who Have Died From Shame
j Over typographical Blunders.
i Nothing can be go disheartening
to a writer as to find his pet phrases
turned into nonsense by the intelli-
gent compositor. 1.-THE printer of
Longfellow's Dante," says Colonel
7. w. Higginson, "told me that the
poet had looked forward with eager
anticipation to its appearance, and
when the first volume of the sump-
tuous book was laid upon the break
fast table, he opened at once upon
a misprint. 1t was many weeks,
my informant said, before the poet
could revert with any satisfaction
to what he then regarded as his
greatest work." Baron Grimm, in
his memoirs, relates the not i'm
probable story of French writer
who died in fit of anger when he
found his favorite work, revised by
himself with great care, had been
printed with more than 800 errors,
half of them made by the corrector
of the press. But it is little more
difficult to swallow the unauthenti-
Gated anecdote of the Italian poet,
who, when on his way to present
copy of verses to the Pope, found
a mistake of single letter, which
broke his heart of chagrin, so that
he died the day after. We can sym
pathize with the author of a relig-
ious work mentioned by Disraeli,
which consisted of only 172 pages,
of which fifteen were devoted to
errata. We can even pardon the
vanity which led him to imagine
that Satan, fearful of the influence
which the book might WELD, had
tampered with the types, and that
the very printers had worked under
the same malign influence.
Nevertheless it is easy to find
less startling explanation for the Or
dinary typographical errors. Blum
ders of this sort may be roughly
grouped under three heads: Errors
of the ear, errors Of the eye, and
errors arising from what printers
call "a foul case" A compositor
while at work reads over a few words
of the copy and retains them in his
memory until his fingers have
picked up the necessary types.
While the memory is thus repeat
ing phrase, it is only natural for
certain words to be supplanted by
others similar in sound-thus,
mistake" might appear in type as
"must take" as, in fact, it did, in
the first folio of Hamlet" act 3,
scene !. "Idle Votarist" ("Timon,"
act 4, scene {, into "Idol Votarist, .
"Long delays, Titus" into Long
days" The eye often deceives the
compositor, especially when the
copy is more or less illegible. Take
away dot and "this time goes
manly" Macbeth, act 4, scene 3
becomes "this tune goes manly"
The third class of errors needs more
explanation. A compositor works
at what is called "a case," a wooden
drawer divided into numerous re-
ceptacles, each containing one let
ter only, say all as or all BIS. When |
from a shake or other accident the |
letters become misplaced, the result
is technically known as a "foul
case" The compositor's fingers
may, under these circumstances,
readily pick out the wrong letter
from the right box without being
conscious of the fact.
These are mistakes to which even
the intelligent compositor is liable,
but it is hardly necessary to say
that all compositors are not intelli-
gent. The machine printer, or
"blacksmith," as he is technically
called, is familiar figure in every
printing Office. tits he who makes
a hurried guess at the copy before
him, without caring whether it
makes sense or not-who substi-
tutes "comic" for "cosmic," ''hu-
man" for "known," "plant" for
planet" II am better" for Scam
betta," "no cows, no cream" for
mo cross. no crown" and shaving
the queen" for Showing the queer"
This is the sort of printer who made
a distinguished traveller die sin the
richness Of sin" instead of the ''in-
terror of Asia," and who described
a Chicago exquisite as one whose
manners would alarm drowning
man." when what the writer really
said was that "they would adorn a
a drawing-room. Richard A. Proc
tor records the most remarkable
change the printers ever arranged
for him as occurring in the proof
of little book on "Spectroscopic
Analysis" which he wrote for the
Society for Promoting Christian
knowledge. The words which in
the work itself now appear, as they