Copy

“ The copy is to the original as the pallid, smart, inane new wax work-group is to the vigorous, earnest, dignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate. There is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, which is to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the merit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one which the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not hope to compass. ”

“ A presentation copy, reader—if haply you are yet innocent of such favours—is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, he expects from you a book of yours which does sell, in return. We can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death—we are willing to acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. ”

“ Whenever it is possible refer to a bibliography to see that your copy is all that it should be. Nothing is more annoying than to discover, perhaps years afterwards, that your copy of a rare book, which you fondly imagined to be a fine one in every respect, lacks a page or so, or a leaf of index or errata, or a plate. It is a good plan to make a point of keeping books upon your table until they have been properly collated and catalogued, when—and not before—they may be placed upon the shelves. ”

“ It will have looked pretty well on the table with the copy showing behind it and hiding its defects, but it is a different thing when held up to the searching daylight. This must not, however, discourage you. No one, not the most skilful, could expect to make a perfect copy of an original (if that original had any fineness of line or sensitiveness of touch about it) by merely tracing it downwards on the bench. You must put it upright against the daylight, and mend your drawing, freehand, faithfully by the copy. ”

“ Some are more industriously employed in writing their copies, which they perform seated on the ground, with their paper on a copy-board—a piece of planed deal, the size of the copy, an appendage now nearly exploded—their cheek-bones laid within half an inch of the left side of the copy, and the eye set to guide the motion of the hand across, and to regulate the straightness of the lines and the forms of the letters. ”

“ In large and quiet rooms in the home office a force of copy-readers is preparing the correspondence from all over the world for the compositors; at the news desks trained men are working day and night over telegrams flashed from far and near, eliminating useless words, punctuating, putting on "heads," and otherwise dressing copy for the typesetters. ”

“ Chase.—A rectangular iron or steel frame into which the forms are locked for printing or stereotyping.
Condensed Type.—Type thin in comparison to its height; contrasted with extended type.
Copy.—Any manuscript prepared for the press. Blind Copy is copy that is difficult to read. Clean Copy is manuscript requiring little or no editing. Time Copy is any matter for which there is no rush,—usually held to be set up by the compositors when they would otherwise be idle, or to be used in case of a scarcity of news. The Sunday paper is filled with time copy. ”

“ After having made the measure for the work, we set a line for the letter that is designed for it, and take notice how much copy will come into the line in the stick, whether less or more than a line of manuscript. And as it is seldom that neither one nor the other happens, we make a mark in the copy where the line in the stick ends, and number the words that it contains. ”

“ Making Copy is an Art. The world’s universities do not teach how to prepare copy for printers. Often college men are not only poor writers of English, but they are as careless of the niceties of typography as are printers in most houses, editors of some publications, ministers, school-teachers, reporters, and public officers. In most manuscripts inconsistencies abound. Numbers, for example, should be spelled out, or written in arabic or in roman numerals, yet the three methods are sometimes seen on one page of copy. ”

“ It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. ”

“ B is a MS. book, into which, in '83, I copied from A certain poems of which the author had kept no copy. He was remiss in making fair copies of his work, and his autograph of The Deutschland having been (seemingly) lost, I copied that poem and others from A at his request. After that date he entered more poems in this book as he completed them, and he also made both corrections of copy and emendations of the poems which had been copied into it by me. Thus, if a poem occur in both A and B, then B is the later and, except for overlooked errors of copyist, the better authority. ”

“ One man was constantly employed in copying out all our journals and scientific observations, etc., etc., on thin paper in a contracted form, as I wanted, by way of doubly assuring their preservation, to take a copy of them along with me. ”

“ This high development of the desirable book is the result of an arrangement to print so many copies of a volume on paper of larger size than that of the bulk of the impression. The tall copy is the result of careful cutting by the binder, or of no cutting at all. In this primitive shape a book has separate charms for a distinct class of collectors who esteem rough edges, and are willing, for the sake of this excellence, to endure the martyrdom of consulting books in that condition. ”

“ The application of these marks and the catch-lines in the editing of copy are shown by the following typical pages:
[Pg 268]
The two images above show the typewritten copy of a short news item which has been edited by a copy reader who has applied these marks to indicate to the compositor how the matter is to be set in type.
[Pg 269]
SUGGESTIONS
Familiarize yourself thoroughly with all details of the typographical style of your paper. Read every word of copy carefully. Work as rapidly as is consistent with accuracy; don’t putter over corrections. ”

“ All of the manuscript, or “copy,” is edited and is supplied with headlines at the copy desk in charge of a head copy-reader with a number of copy-readers as assistants. “Rewrite men” are often employed to take the facts of a story from another newspaper and rewrite them, or to [Pg 6] receive material over the telephone from reporters and correspondents and write it up for publication. ”

“ Folio. Here, again, are two copies; one upon paper, the other UPON VELLUM. Of these, the vellum copy is much damaged in the principal illumination, and is also cropt in the binding. The paper copy can hardly be surpassed, if equalled. ”

“ If I could only lay hold of a copy of the picture I might ask leave to go and compare it with the original. So down I went to Esher to find out if there was a copy in existence, and was at Broom Hall for one hour and a half yesterday afternoon. There was no copy there, but they must exist, for Sir Bernard himself (there's 'copy' there!) has allowed a couple to be made since the picture has been in his possession. ”

“ These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. ”

“ Taking up a copy at random one finds articles on proofreading, the point system in type founding, notes on bookbinding, natural colors in the printing press, newspapers and newspaper men, the country newspaper, typographical make-ready, advertising, convention notes, review of type designs, pressroom queries and answers, process engraving, new patents, trade notes and much general information. ”

“ Thanks to the Grangerizers, a portrait will perhaps be missing from one volume, and a plate from another; some disciple of an ancient Goth may have removed a title-page or two; one copy may be fairer to look upon than another; a leaf or two may be injured which in another copy, imperfect perhaps in other respects, may be above suspicion. Our collectors have duplicates, for they have been striving all their lives to prevent anyone else from obtaining any copy, good, bad or indifferent, of the scarcest works of the author or authors they think they honour by their notice. ”

“ To take the work to pieces and introduce the new material into the text or the notes will impose a necessity of buying a new copy, or of being left with an inferior one, on the many friends who least deserve to be so treated. ”

“ Let the boy hold his pen as he likes, and make his strokes as he likes, and write at the pace he likes—hurry, of course, being discouraged—but insist strenuously and persistently that his copy shall be legible, shall be clean, and shall approach the good copy set before him, namely, a well-written letter, not a rubbishy text on a single line, written as nobody but a writing-master ever did or will write till the world's end. ”

“ The “third proof” is now sent to the author, editor, or publisher, with so much copy as may cover it, the copy-holder being careful, however, to retain the “mark-off”; i. e., the sheet on which is marked off the place where the next “first proof” is to begin. But when the work is of such sort as not to require extraordinary care, the second proof is sent out, a single reading by copy being deemed sufficient. If the work is read twice by copy, only one reader should attend to the punctuation. ”

“ You will note every copy is different from each other and all different from the original, because each child looked at some one else's writing and not at the original. We are apt to copy each other's mistakes and example. ”

“ Each page should contain approximately the same number of lines, as this assists the publisher in estimating the number of words, and in determining the probable size of the printed volume. [2]
Always retain a duplicate copy of a manuscript, to prevent loss by fire, theft or other accident. It is an undue responsibility for an author to place upon a publisher to submit to him the only copy of a manuscript in existence. If the manuscript be accepted, it is also an advantage to have a copy for the use of the artist, etc. ”

“ The only way to obtain ‘copy’ (in this Latin sense) or abundance of any document, would be by taking ‘copies’ (in our present sense) of it. Then, too, it often meant the exemplar, and is so used in the quotations from Shakespeare and Jeremy Taylor.
We cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God Himself. Therefore He using divers words in his Holy Writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature, we may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew or Greek, for that copy or store that He hath given us.—The Translators [of the Bible, 1611] to the Reader. ”

“ The beginning is the great trouble. To avoid difficulties, therefore, I strongly advise all who are afraid to draw, to trace their copy on thin paper and transfer it, by means of transfer paper, to the card or paper on which they intend to paint. ”

“ Have you anything else?”
“Here is an unique copy of a very rare work, called ‘The Philosophy of Flea-catching,’ in sheets, clean and uncut. The learned Scribble-gossip says that this volume has now become so scarce that there is only one other copy extant, which is in the public library in India. This, however, has one important advantage over the other, which renders it of incalculably [57] more value; for, if you notice, it has the Finis at the end printed backwards.”
“Wonderful!” muttered his patron, as he noticed the extraordinary feature. “And what shall I pay you for it?” ”

“ There are many woodcuts of figures of propositions. Most copies have a device on the titlepage, but a presentation copy from the author to the Bodleian and the copy in the Savile Library omit it. The absence of a dedication is unusual. ”

“ Whoever doubts this let him begin by showing where, when, by whom, and with what object such a forgery could be committed, and let him show in modern times the fellow of this paper, this writing, and this language.
Moreover, that the manuscript of 1256 is not original, but is a copy, is proved by the numerous faults in the writing, as well as by some explanations of words which already in the time of the copyist had become obsolete and little known, as, for instance, in page 82 (114) , “to thêra flête jefta bedrum;” page 151 (204) , “bargum jefta tonnum fon tha besta bjar.” ”

“ The copy reader should take pains to make each head fit the pattern before it leaves his hands. Until he has familiarized himself with the heads he must write, he may find it convenient to keep at hand a style card on which is pasted a sample of each head used, with notations showing the number of letters and spaces to be written in the different divisions. Each type line is said to contain so many units, counting spaces as well as letters. ”

“ I have a copy (of which I send you a transcript) which has some very good lines in it, that are not in the printed copy; and besides, if you will compare it with the original, you will find that you left off without going through with the epistle. The fable of the country and city mouse is as prettily told as any thing of that kind ever was: possibly, if you look over your papers, you may find that you finished the whole; if not, I enjoin you, as a task, to go through with it: and I beg of you, do not suffer an imperfect copy to stand, while it is in your power to rectify it [1] . ”