‘Stereotype’ and other words from printers’ lingo

The printing press not only transformed the business of the written word, but gave English new words altogether, our language columnist writes.

|
Staff

The printing press has given English a surprising number of words. Early 19th-century French printers had two words for the cast metal plates they used to reprint popular books without needing to reset the type. The plates were clichés (which we talked about last week), and books produced in this manner were éditions stéréotypes, a combination of the two Greek words stereós (“solid” or “fixed”) and túpos (“impression,” the mark left by a blow).

In English, stereotype first referred to the metal plates themselves, which had been invented as a way to reproduce text cheaply and quickly. The word’s metaphorical possibilities were irresistible, and by the mid-19th century it was being used for anything “continued or constantly repeated without change,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1849, for example, a man complained that his wife was content to use “stereotyped epithets of endearment” – “dearest” and “angel” were popular at the time – instead of letting passion inspire something more creative.  

One area in which “fixed impressions” abound is in discussing people grouped by nationality, gender, religion, race, and so on. Journalist Walter Lippmann seems to have popularized the word’s usage in this sense in a 1922 discussion of how preconceived stereotypes can act as rubrics for understanding a complex world, but how they can be dangerous when people cling to them despite contrary evidence, or if they are simply wildly off base to begin with.

We have uppercase and lowercase letters not because the former are taller, but because of the way printers stored their movable type. Capital letters were kept in the “upper case,” along with symbols and accent marks that would be needed less frequently; small letters, commas, periods, and so on were stored in the “lower case,” closer to the compositor. 

A typo was once short for typographer, but by 1892 had come to refer to typographers’ errors as they grabbed the wrong letter. 

If you act with the imprimatur of your boss, you’re doing something with her formal approval. Imprimatur means “let it be printed” in Latin, and in Renaissance England it was included at the beginning of books to prove they had been licensed for publication by the authorities. 

There’s also an idiom that is attributed to printers’ lingo: out of sorts. From the late 17th century, a sort was an individual letter, a piece of movable type. If a typographer ran out of sorts, he’d have trouble finishing the job, and would probably be frustrated. To be out of sorts is to feel “irritated” or “upset,” as anyone would be who had reached into his lower case and discovered that he is out of e’s.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to ‘Stereotype’ and other words from printers’ lingo
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2022/0228/Stereotype-and-other-words-from-printers-lingo
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe