Aldis, M.A.
Cambridge: at the University Press 1916
of the text of the work, leaving the title and other
'preliminary matter' to be printed last. The preliminary matter
includes the half-title (or bastard title), the title page,
preface, and lists of contents and illustrations. Corrections of
proofs may, if numerous or extensive, entail considerable
expense, and it is therefore desirable that they should be
kept within the narrowest possible limits. This can be done in
two ways: first, by carefully
1 Nowadays the date of publication, together with the dates
of previous editions of the work, are often printed on the
verso of the title page. It is more satisfactory to have the
date on the title page itself; but it is the entire suppression
of the date that is to be condemned revising the manuscript
for the printer, attending to punctuation and capitals, and
to all that. But it cannot be considered the printer's duty to act the part of revising editor; and, besides, to send in a
carelessly written and ill-prepared manuscript is most inconsiderate, and extremely unfair to the compositor, to whom
it is a loss of time and money to have to puzzle out an illegible scrawl and to phrase out paragraphs devoid of
punctuation marks.
The second method of avoiding unnecessary expense in the correction of proofs is to be careful of the way in which
alterations are made. Each letter of type consists of a small block of metal, rather less than an inch high, with the
letter in relief on the end of it. Each of these letters occupies a definite portion of the length of the line: an m takes
more room than an i, and a t is narrower than a w. between each word is a 'space,' that is a narrow piece of metal like
the shank of a letter but not so high. Being lower than the face of the letters the 'spaces' do not. get inked, and
therefore leave the necessary intervals between the words. These spaces also facilitate small corrections in proof. For
instance, if 'when' has to be substituted for 'and' in a line, the four letters can probably be inserted in place of the
three by slightly reducing the spaces between some of the words. The converse can be affected by increasing the
spaces. But to add or to cut out one or more words it may be necessary to 'overrun' (that is, to alter the contents of)
several lines, and this means a certain amount of trouble, time, and expense. Overrunning can sometimes be avoided
by adding words of similar length to those deleted, or by cutting out words to make room for those which have to be
inserted. This is not of so much importance when the correction is near the end of a paragraph, unless it will alter the
number of lines. .
< Chapter Index >