Wow, that was fascinating! Just think of how long it would've taken just to print one book, and they had to print lots of them!
Julia----- Original Message ----- From: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 2:39 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] The Em-Dash in print
Sue et all. Yes, in print the em dash is twice as long as hyphen or plain dash. It comes from the days when print was physically set by printers, i.e., people, into big printers. I don't know if you've ever had sight, so I don't know if you've ever seen the difference between the letter em and the letter en--the former has two sort of loops or humps and the latter has one. That's why an en dash is shorter than an em dash. I once had an opportunity to work with a real printer, meaning the machine, and to set type. When I was in library school there was still on in the basement. I set type for my Christmas cards on it--great fun but time-consuming. Anyway, in the olden days--and perhaps those of you who had sight at one time have seen pictures of old-time printers and their machines--there were trays of letters and punctuation marks of various fonts. The typesetter, a person, would select the letters from the trays, and an em dash or a hyphen as needed, and put them onto a sort of hollow wide horizontal stick called a composing stick (I looked that up). I can't remember know how that was carried or put onto the printing press--maybe the sticks themselves were taken off the carrying handle and set into the press. Then, as I recall, once all the type was set into the press it was inked and paper was put onto rollers and rolled over the type to create newspapers, etc. Unfortunately, it was many years ago that I made my cards, and the illustrations of Ben Franklin and other printers in action don't show much action. I've done a little googling to see if I could get a better description but so far haven't been able to and don't want to spent any more time looking. Anyway, all that's probably more than any of you wanted to know. I probably should have stopped after my first sentence in answer to Sue's question. sigh Cindy --- siss52 <siss52@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi All, Evan, I am beginning to feel ambivalence about this cottin pickin' em-dash as well. For me it doesn't matter. I mean, I am a Braille reader and this dash seems to translate into one dash or hyphen on bookshare.org. So I have a question. <big sigh> In print, does the em-dash look a lot different from a double dash or two hyphens? On my Braille display when I validate a file in Word, it looks like a capital hyphen. My display is an 8-dot cell, and that is how it looks. So I am wondering how it looks in print. Also, what does a Daisy speech file say if someone wants to know? Sorry to bring this up, but it is my concern for students that set me off. <lol> A student should know the difference in the single hyphen that is used for compound words and a dash which, in Braille Grade II, is a double hyphen. I usually validate fiction, but still, I am concerned. Sue S.__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
