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This Week's Story

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Etaoin Shrdlu

© 2001 James David Pearce

(The following letter was written by Elmo in an internet conversation with Lee Morse, a genius who specializes in history on an internet bulletin board. In this response, Elmo strains to explain how the limitations of old-time typesetting resulted in a lot of confusion in recording major events as well as mix-ups in the literature of the times.)

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Dear Lee:

The way you use the word "piffled" remindf me of something I once heard Benjamin Franklin say.

Let'f see if I can remember thif correctly:

"You can tell if a young lady haf clasf ~

"Because she'll never be heard to say asf ~ "

I think that was the way it went.

It was that "final s" business, you know.

In those olden dayf, printerf didn't have many "sssss" in their "s" boxef.

But they had a whole lot of "fffffff's" ~ too many, in fact, for their "f" boxef.

So to help out with the "s" shortage, they would use "f's" for "s's" when it waf the last letter in the word.

I do not mean to detract in any way from your brilliant dissertation as to why the old printers once used words like "Ye" instead of "The" in such instances as "Ye History of Ye Towne of Greenwich" and "Ye Olde Malt Shoppe." It could have been as you say ~ a natural antagonism between "T" and "H" that resulted in the dismissal of both from the printed page.

But I suspect that the real cause of "Ye" overpowering "The" back then was the same problem that brought about "f" for "s," in some, but not all, instances.

The trouble was in the "shorts" ~ and for printers in the olden days, the "shorts" problem came on stage almost at the same time as "movable type." Sometimes there just weren't enough letters lying around the printing shop to let the poor fellow spell the word correctly. So he had to "substitute" something else for the "short" letter ~ or else just change to a different word entirely.

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Not long after Johannes G. the German copied the Chinese idea of a separate piece of type for each letter, there was designed a "case" (usually a wooden box with little dividers in it) to hold all of the little leaden or wooden letters of the alphabet.

Now printing anything required a whole lot of these letters ~ so much so that one "case" couldn't hold the needed supply. From this was derived the idea of having one "case" up high that held the "capital" letters (E T and A etc) ~ and another case down low that held the "little letters" (e t and a etc).

The printer would stand up and reach into the "upper case" when he needed a capital letter for his "stick" of type ~ and then he would sit down in front of the "lower case" when he needed some of the ~ well ~ some of the "lower case." (Some later printers and editors shortened this terminology to "up" and "down.")

Both the big-letter (upper) case and the little-letter (lower) case were of the same design ~ the same shape and the same size ~ for every alphabet letter in use at the time.

And the problem really took hold right there, with the German, English, French and Latin languages all being contrary enough that they demanded the use of more of some letters than of others ~ resulting in the "shorts" ~ not enough of something like an "e" or an "a" and an excess of "x's" and "z's" ~

This caused a lot of trouble and misspelled words ~ and brought about substitutions ~ like "f" for a "final s."

Also, originally, printed English didn't have a "J" or a "U" ~ didn't need it, really, because everybody was accustomed to using an "I" or a "V" anyway ~ like if you wanted to say "IVLIVS Caesar" or some such.

So when some of the more influential editors (like King James) decided they had to start using real "J's" and real "U's," it was necessary to add them down at the bottom of the "case" ~ (didn't want to move all the other letters around) ~ and this cut into the number of little boxes that they had previously used for "shorted" letters and/or spacing material.

When Mark Twain started writing, things got really, really bad ~ because he tended toward the use of a whole lot of letters like "e" "t" "a" "o" "i" and "n" ~ and in "lower-case," too.

But that problem was soon resolved, because Mark was writing a lot of his stuff in California ~ and as is well known, you can leave it up to Californians to solve most of the world's problems with words.

So they came up with the "California Case." It was a newly designed type-case to hold all of the printer's letters and it had a whole lot of different-size boxes for the letters.

They kept the "cap" or "upper-case" side the same as the old ~ because by this time nobody wanted a "cap" letter anyway except at the start of the paragraph, or when saying something like "Good Lord."

But on the "lower-case" side, they had great big boxes for "t" "a" "o" "i" "n" "s" "h" "r" "d" "l" and "u" ~ and a great big huge box for the "lower-case" "e."

That completely cured the supply-side problem, and from then on, they quit using "f" for "s" and "whatever" for whatever it happened that they had run out of.

The design worked well ~ because etaoin shrdlu were the most-used letters in the California Language at the time.

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When Ottmarr M. the German built his first Linotype (typesetting) machine in the late 1800s, he admired the California type-case idea so much that he made the first two rows of keys on his keyboard ~ "etaoin shrdlu."

That worked pretty well, too, but it caused a lot of Linotype operators to develop over-size left hands and fingers, because all those keys were hit with the left hand's five fingers ~ leaving the right hand's five fingers to handle everything else ~ the rest of the "lower-case," the figures, the punctuation marks and all of the capital letters ~ and sometimes a "u" and even an occasional "n."

Ottmarr's system kept the left hand generally still, with a lot of finger-flexing, and sent the right hand wandering all around the rest of the big keyboard, generally using just one finger.

Occasionally an operator at one of Ottmarr's machines would hit a wrong key, and bring down a letter that he didn't want at the time. He had to reach into the assembly and remove that letter, which he would place at the bottom-left corner of his "copy pan."

Some operators hit a lot of wrong keys, and built up a fair supply of letters on the copy pan ~ out of the loop, so to speak. This in turn resulted in a problem of "shorts" in the working system, which he had to rectify by "sending" them back up into their "magazine."

He did this by inserting them into his "first-elevator assembly," just as if he were "setting" a legitimate line of type.

But if there weren't enough to fill an entire line, he couldn't send them back by themselves, because if he sent a "short" line into position in front of the melting pot, the Linotype machine would spray hot lead in his general direction as a form of punishment.

So he would put the shorts into the assembly, move his left thumb into position over the space-bar, and bring his right index finger (which welcomed the break from its roaming routine) straight down the first row of keys.

This resulted in the word "etaoin." He then would use his left thumb to bring down another space, and return with his right index finger straight down the second row of keys.

That resulted in the word "shrdlu." When this routine was repeated sufficiently to fill out the short line, he would "elevate" it over to where the action was, in front of the melting pot.

Since a lot of Linotype work was done on deadline, there wasn't always time for proofreaders to get a look at the "galley." This meant the story would be "railroaded" into the page form.

And this of course resulted in a lot of "etaoin shrdlu etaoin shrdlu etao" lines showing up in newspapers all over the world ~ confounding the reading public ~ and bringing about the general recognition of "etaoin shrdlu" as an artifact of typesetting in almost every language that was printed from left to right.

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Now, when some other German built his early "typewriter," he really didn't know what to do about the placement of the letters ~ but he accepted the fact that "etaoin shrdlu" were the most-used keys ~ and so he divided them up on both sides of his keyboards in order to let the typist use eight fingers and one thumb.

However, he overlooked the fact that "e" "t' "a" were used more than just about everything else put together ~ and his machine also brought on an overworked left hand ~ and also handed a weak little finger the overwhelming task of handling the ever-more popular "a."

The result was that a lot of new "touch-typists" just went right on and left out a whole lot of "a's."

The resulting mix-ups were called "typos," generally resulting from tired or weak fingers. They were different from "errors" and "mistakes," which generally resulted from stupidity.

~

But all of the old-time problems were instantly solved with the introduction of computers and something called "Spell-Check."

Since that day ~ and those developments ~ there always have been plenty of letters around to print any and all words anybody wanted. Sometimes, even more than a lot of folks wanted.

And also ~ there never have been any more misspelled words.

Have there?

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The author is very much indebted to John V. Burke for the following explanation of the Old English "Ye." Mr. Burke is a retired railroad man, now living in San Francisco, California.

~

"Ye" as in "ye olde tea shoppe" is actually an echo of a letter that was part of the alphabet in an earlier stage of the English language.

It looked like a mirror-image upper-case Y (the non-symmetrical one), was called the thorn letter, and was sounded as the voiced "th" in words like "mother" and "the."

In other words, what we are really reading is nothing more or less than "the old tea shop."

~Best~JVB~

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The author, in writing the original version of this story, also failed to do his research on the nitty-gritty behind the "f-for-s" usage.   A sharp reader, Cherie Hayek, of Youngstown, Ohio, sent the following letter on this issue, and we are considering correcting the story to conform more with the realities of the situation ...... But then, on the other hand ...... ......

~

A friend of mine is writing a paper for a college history class, comparing two newspapers that were published 100 years apart. While reading the October 7th issue of The Boston Gazette from 1765, we noticed that there seemed to be many "f's" where "s's" should be ..... I decided to look on the internet for the reason why and came across your article, or rather, an excerpt of it ("Etaoin Shrdlu") ...... I was hoping you could help me with one question. In your article you discuss how the "f" was used for "s" at the end of a word. In this paper, the condition is exactly the opposite. The typesetter used "f" for "s" only in the middle of a word. A normal "s" is used in all cases where "s" is the last letter in the word ...... Do you have an explanation for this? Your input would be greatly appreciated. ~ Chérie Hayek, Youngstown, Ohio.

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This Week's Verse

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A B C D
E F G
H I J K
L M N O P
Q R S
T U V
W X
Y and Z
Now you've heard my A B Cs
Tell me what you think of these.

(Pre-school teaching poem)

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This Week's Mailbox

In the interests of everyone's privacy, only the letter-writer's name
and general location will be used here ~ unless the addition
of an URL or an address is approved by the writer

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...... Subject: Old Man from Ahoskie ...... To whom it may concern: I was in the Class of 1950. Not many people will remember me because I was "asked" to leave town ~ with Merle Vaughan and Tommy Umphlett. They came back, but I haven't visited Ahoskie in about 40 years. I hope I can come back. (Please do not take me seriously about that "leaving") ...... If (anyone) sees Merle or Tommy, give them my very best. They can drop me a line if they wish ...... Like to hear from you also ...... I worked at the Manhattan Cafe that my Uncle Gus operated with my Uncle Tom. John Pappas was my cousin and Elizabeth was his sister. Helen was my sister. You may remember her ...... Did you know Gus Costis? I was "Little John" when I was in high school ...... Of course, I played football. Jack Young was there with Dutch Overton ...... I left in the early 1950s to join the Coast Guard at Norfolk. It was the biggest break for me. I really learned a lot ...... It has been real nice to hear from you ...... My very best wishes to all. ~ John Karanikas, Jefferson, Maryland.   eMail John

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...... Oh, how I remember Uncle Starkey (The Poor Town News No. 66) ...... He gave us our first TV and it was so small you could hardly see what was on, but it was so fascinating to finally see what we had been listening to on the radio. He gave us two or three before we could get one to work ...... And I remember his hating caffeine. He put food coloring in water once and told me it was Pepsi. He also would not drink anything cold, and he would never come to visit unless the Farmer’s Almanac said it was OK ...... Oh, I do remember Uncle Starkey, and how fascinated I was by him. What year did he die? I seem to remember visiting him in a nursing home in Ahoskie. ~ Fred Phelps, director of sales and marketing, Florida Association of Insurance Agents, Tallahassee, Florida.

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...... That picture (of James and Rebecca in The Poor Town News 66) had to be taken 20 years ago. Still a good picture. Keep up the good work. ~ Joe Dickerson, North Carolina.

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...... You're even better-looking in person!!! (Stole that line from the John Edwards newsletter) ...... Uncle Starkey was quite a character. I remember hearing stories about him in the nursing home. ~ Valerie Horne Sumner, California.

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...... Loved that picture! ~ Aggie Green, Michigan.

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...... That is a great picture of you two ...... You are still doing a great job. Keep up the good work ...... My wife says she has seen enough of Hertford and Gates counties to last a lifetime. Not sure when I will get down there again. ~ Joe Pearce, Collingswood, New Jersey.

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...... Jim and Becky: That is a great picture! ~ Marillyn Mulholland, North Carolina.

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...... What a precious picture, and I can vouch that ya'll haven't changed a bit. Just as cute as ever!!   ;>)) ~ Ann Medley, North Carolina.

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...... I am an author at work on a book about soldiers who fought on both sides in the Civil War. I was naturally fascinated by your website. Do you have more information on Isaac Pearce? ...... My book, "The Disappearing Cemetery," has a long section on the Civil War in addition to being a history of the Scotch-Irish. In between all that, I tell the story of an all-but-forgotten little cemetery here in the mountains of East Tennessee ...... Walk in a good way. ~ Tom Cordle, Tellico Plains, Tennessee.

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...... Thanks for another fine story...... Loved the picture of the ship with the signalmen. The Signalmen and Radiomen have gone the way of the dinosaur. They are no longer rates in the Navy. It is all computerized now. ~ Norma Scott, Florida.

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