Why Numbers Are Removed Rather Than Added
With each successive reprint, the publisher needs to instruct the printer to change the impression number, and the theory is that the printer is less likely to make a mistake if they are only removing the lowest number rather than introducing a new number each time. With this arrangement, all the printer has to do is "rub off" the last number in sequence. By changing only the outer number it means that the fewest possible changes are made to the page of characters, which means the smallest possible charge to the publisher. In the days of hot-metal printing, where each character was a metal block, all the printer had to do was to physically pick out the relevant blocks from the "sheet" and then the stack of blocks which would have been laboriously laid out when the page was first set up could be inked up for the reprint. In the case of a Linotype slug, the lowest number could be filed off and the slug reused. In either case, the change was minimal.
Read more about this topic: Printer's Key
Famous quotes containing the words numbers, removed and/or added:
“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“I am the kind of a woman that likes to move on mentally from point to point, and I like for my man to be there way ahead of me. Then if he is strong and honest, it goes on from there. Good looks are not essential, just extra added attraction.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)