THE LEXICON OF PRINT

Through the annals of time writers have expressed strong opinions about printers, printing presses and printed matter with abandon. Some, such as physicist and writer George Chrisoph Lictenberg, have been glowingly complimentary, while others have unfairly blamed the press for society's ills.

The English Poet John Masefield (1878-1967) described his attitude to the trade thus: ''Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man. It has become the amusement and delight of the few.''

In addition, the 19th century American journalist Ambrose Bierce wrote in his book The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary that a printer was ''a fiend who devours copy and is always crying out for more'' (he also described a proof as ''copy half cooked'' and type as 'pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment')

To celebrate the love-hate affair between the literacy set and the printing industry Caroline Archers presents us with the finest 26 print-related quotes for your delectation.

A is for .....author's instruction

"Print it as it stands - beautifully"              Henry James (1843-1916)

 

B is for ..... books

"If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes,

new to me whether it was printed yesterday or 300 years ago"              William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)

 

C is for ..... censorship

"As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics and other institutions, I am free to print anything"              

Pierre de Beaunarchais (1732 - 1799)

 

D is for ..... democracy

"He who first shortened the labour of copyists by device of moveable type was disbanding hired armies, and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating a whole new democratic world: he had invented the art of printing"              Thomas Carlyle (1732 - 1830)

 

E is for ..... editor

"Editor: a person employed by a newspaper whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed"              Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

 

F is for ..... freedom of the press

"If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all this is delightful to man ..... it will ask more than the work of 20 licencers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house .... and who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?"             John Milton (1608-1674)

 

G is for ..... gunpowder

"The three great elements of modern civilization: gunpowder, printing and the Protestant religion"              Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

 

H is for ..... heaven sent

"If another messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing press"             George Christoph Lictenberg (1742-1799)

 

I is for ..... inventions

"The impact of television on our culture is ... indescribable. There's a certain sense in which it is nearly as important as the invention of printing"        Carl Sandburg(1878 - 1967)

 

J is for ..... journalists

"How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print"              

Karl Kraus (1874 - 1936)

 

K is for ..... knowledge

"I was in a printing house in hell and saw the method in which knowledge

is transmitted from generation to generation"              

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

 

L is for ..... life force

"For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them: they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them"              

John Milton (1608-1674)

 

M is for ..... misprints

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."              

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint"              

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

 

N is for ..... name in print

"And I dream of the days when work was scrappy

and rare in our pockets the mark of the mint

when we were angry and poor and happy

and proud of seeing our names in print."              

GK Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

 

O is for ..... offensive

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure

it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."              

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

 

P is for ..... printing press

"The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, one sometimes forgets which."              

James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937)

 

Q is for ..... queer

"There could hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticised and read by people who don't understand them, and now even written be people who don't understand them."              

George Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

 

R is for ..... race reports

"Many are engaged in writing books and printing them, many desire to see their names in print, many read nothing but the race reports."              

TS Eliot (1888 - 1965)

 

S is for ..... small print

"Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't."   Pete Seeger (1919- )

 

T is for ..... typography

"Remarked to someone talking of 'ducking for apples' at a Halloween Party: ' There, but for a typographical error is the story of my life"              

Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)

 

U is for ..... ugliness

"Free us, for we perish in this ever-flowing monotony of ugly print marks, black upon white parchment."      Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)

 

V is for .....value

"Well-printed books are just as scarce as well-written ones: and every author should remember that the most costly books in the world derive their value from the craft of the printer, and not from the genius of the author."       George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

W is for ..... writers

"A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print."         Marguerite Yourcenar (1856 - 1900)

 

X is for ..... 'xtraordinary

"Television was the most extraordinary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward."  Russell Baker (1925- )

 

Y is for ..... youth

"Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a

grammar school...our forefathers had no other books but the score

and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be us'd and

contrary to the King, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill."              

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

 

Z is for .....z z z ...

"....trivial personalities decomposing into the eternity of print."    Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941)

 

 

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