Pilcrow may be my new favorite word, though I doubt that I will be able to find a way to use it in conversation unless I get really silly. “Have you met my friend Miss Pilcrow? She invents names for symbols.” Well, maybe not.
Finally, I believe it was Sylvia Plath who stated that to her a poem didn’t become real until it was printed (professionally) on the page. Real and looking good.
After going over it twice, I think I agree with everything you say (and I am thrilled to learn the terms for stacks and ladders, because I love putting words to things)—though my own most recent adventures in book design I have taken endless pains to end every paragraph with at least two words on the last line and never to break a word at the end of a righthand page. That was going above and beyond, though, in a labor of love. And I’m a little bit obsessive-compulsive!
I mean, I think that if you have that capability and time and responsibility, etc., you can do these sorts of things to your heart’s content. But at the same time, I don’t think (as some people like to assert) that holding to a reasonable set of reasonable standards constitutes some sort of laxness on the part of a major publisher like RH. What it constitutes is publishing a few hundred books a year.
Yes, exactly, that makes all the sense in the world. But I would never look at a book that didn’t go to those extremes and think “This is poorly designed.” As I have certainly thought about print books for other reasons!
In my last few years at RH, the task of outputting first-pass pages was given over to the house text designers (rather than handed over to a compositor), and the designers often took greater pains with their first passes (tidying up lines, pre-killing the widows and the orphans, being very precise about illustration placement, etc.) than the compositors, of necessity, did, which is one reason that bound galleys made from first-pass pages look so good these days.
You have a mind of a graphic designer. We are mad, and would never allow the things you don’t allow, but ad copy is much shorter than a book, so now I realize how difficult it must be to care for hundreds of pages at a time.
I certainly, in my day, worked on a few extremely design-heavy books in which you were in fact having to play with/trim/revise text to get things to work right across spreads, around illustrations, etc., but that’s a very different thing, to be sure, from books that are, more or less, pure text from start to finish.
Asterisks, daggers, double daggers, pilcrows and octothorpes (hashtags before they changed their names) would be the *other* subjects covered in "My Dingbats" if I ever got around to writing it.
I do so appreciate a good looking page! Now hoping I can work pilcrow and manicule, not “pillow and manicure” as spellcheck insisted, into everyday chit-chat. Red waxy pencil pilcrows still haunt me. Note #8 made me smile.
If I'm answering the question I think you're asking: Random House never used numbers to call out on-page footnotes, only the footnote symbols. Numbers are for backmatter citational notes only.
I love it. I also tend to digress, but within the body, in hopes not to lose the reader. When I think about it, I think Bill Bryson might also employ it as you do.
I’m told that Terry Pratchett—whom I must confess I’ve not yet ever read—was a big one for amusing footnote after footnote after footnote.
For me it just happened as I was writing DE because that’s how my mind seems to work, with tons of digressions and other “by the way”s, and I just allowed it to work that way. Here at Substack, of course, I’ve gone completely off the deep end with it, but… I like it.
I'm not sure if this is entirely in line with your question, but an enthusiastic wielder of footnotes for both informative and literary/entertainment purposes was David Foster Wallace.
I love "One never knows. DO one?" I thought it was Count Basie, so I looked it up. I got several AI references to the phrase, crediting it to Waller and "defining" it, as in "'One never knows' signifies that the future is unpredictable and uncertain." What they don't say is that Waller (and Basie?) used the phrase to mock "proper" English, with its use of "One never knows, does one?" rather than "You never know, do ya?" That was in the days when black people in movies still tended to talk like idiots and clowns. One doesn't want to suggest equal intelligence, does one?
I broke into journalism as a copy editor, and I still take pleasure in the knowledge, even though I violate the rules endlessly.
I agree about footnotes being comments and endnotes being citations. Sadly for my researching students, Google Docs only allows for footnotes (yes, my colleagues have had to adjust).
Speaking of ebooks, that catchphrase system of note designation would drive me up the wall, through the ceiling, and into the neighbor's apartment, sobbing. How are they linked? Is the phrase within the text hyperlinked to the note? Isn't that really homely? I don't know what PRH's style is for hyperlinks within text (they should be underlined and in a color, for accessibility purposes), so a number, unless in three or four digits, would be much less distracting than a phrase or two per paragraph, or even every other paragraph or every third. (I used to make tens, sometimes hundreds, of ebooks a year of all types, beginning in the early years of the KindleKoboNook era, so have done a lot of wall climbing. No more, I'm thrilled to say.)
To be honest, the ebooks were not ever my fiefdom (one has only so many brain cells, and there are only so many hours in the workday), but I’ve been led to believe that PRH ebooks are extremely soundly constructed, including giving readers the ability to journey from text to notes and back again.
I know some of those charged with the sacred task of the transformation of immortal words into 1s and 0s at PRH, and they are indeed top-notch. Trailblazers, in fact.
And congratulations for leaving ebooks to someone else's fief. (Is that correct to say? Does someone have a fief? Or does the fief have them?)
After years making and testing and advocating for and developing and writing about ebooks, I don't ever want to read one again. Funny, I spent many more years typesetting and have no problem picking up a stack of papers glued to slightly heavier paper.
Ah, Dotty—the only one of the Round Table whose writing, to me, hasn’t become stale.
In the rarified world of advertising copy - where space counts - it’s common knowledge that one should “kill the widow.”
Rest assured, no blood was spilt … though tears likely shed.
Pilcrow may be my new favorite word, though I doubt that I will be able to find a way to use it in conversation unless I get really silly. “Have you met my friend Miss Pilcrow? She invents names for symbols.” Well, maybe not.
Finally, I believe it was Sylvia Plath who stated that to her a poem didn’t become real until it was printed (professionally) on the page. Real and looking good.
This is my jam.
After going over it twice, I think I agree with everything you say (and I am thrilled to learn the terms for stacks and ladders, because I love putting words to things)—though my own most recent adventures in book design I have taken endless pains to end every paragraph with at least two words on the last line and never to break a word at the end of a righthand page. That was going above and beyond, though, in a labor of love. And I’m a little bit obsessive-compulsive!
I mean, I think that if you have that capability and time and responsibility, etc., you can do these sorts of things to your heart’s content. But at the same time, I don’t think (as some people like to assert) that holding to a reasonable set of reasonable standards constitutes some sort of laxness on the part of a major publisher like RH. What it constitutes is publishing a few hundred books a year.
Yes, exactly, that makes all the sense in the world. But I would never look at a book that didn’t go to those extremes and think “This is poorly designed.” As I have certainly thought about print books for other reasons!
In my last few years at RH, the task of outputting first-pass pages was given over to the house text designers (rather than handed over to a compositor), and the designers often took greater pains with their first passes (tidying up lines, pre-killing the widows and the orphans, being very precise about illustration placement, etc.) than the compositors, of necessity, did, which is one reason that bound galleys made from first-pass pages look so good these days.
You have a mind of a graphic designer. We are mad, and would never allow the things you don’t allow, but ad copy is much shorter than a book, so now I realize how difficult it must be to care for hundreds of pages at a time.
I certainly, in my day, worked on a few extremely design-heavy books in which you were in fact having to play with/trim/revise text to get things to work right across spreads, around illustrations, etc., but that’s a very different thing, to be sure, from books that are, more or less, pure text from start to finish.
Asterisks, daggers, double daggers, pilcrows and octothorpes (hashtags before they changed their names) would be the *other* subjects covered in "My Dingbats" if I ever got around to writing it.
I do so appreciate a good looking page! Now hoping I can work pilcrow and manicule, not “pillow and manicure” as spellcheck insisted, into everyday chit-chat. Red waxy pencil pilcrows still haunt me. Note #8 made me smile.
I’ve been down the asterisk/dagger/section sign/paragraph thingy and hashtag-sharp symbol. Mostly because I tend to stray.
Is the use of footnotes for those exclusive to you? I’ve never seen it used in that way—only in citing as you pointed out.
If I'm answering the question I think you're asking: Random House never used numbers to call out on-page footnotes, only the footnote symbols. Numbers are for backmatter citational notes only.
(Was that the question?)
And here at Substack, where I can indulge my mania for footnotes to my heart's content, the system uses numbers, so I use numbers.
I love it. I also tend to digress, but within the body, in hopes not to lose the reader. When I think about it, I think Bill Bryson might also employ it as you do.
It clarifies the industry standards. I guess what I’m asking is did you invent the use of footnotes to educate and entertain simultaneously?
Oh, that!
I’m told that Terry Pratchett—whom I must confess I’ve not yet ever read—was a big one for amusing footnote after footnote after footnote.
For me it just happened as I was writing DE because that’s how my mind seems to work, with tons of digressions and other “by the way”s, and I just allowed it to work that way. Here at Substack, of course, I’ve gone completely off the deep end with it, but… I like it.
I'm not sure if this is entirely in line with your question, but an enthusiastic wielder of footnotes for both informative and literary/entertainment purposes was David Foster Wallace.
🥰
Thank you for sending these informative adventures, giving me words for marks I'd generally call a thing-y. And on a gray, soggy day, too.
I love "One never knows. DO one?" I thought it was Count Basie, so I looked it up. I got several AI references to the phrase, crediting it to Waller and "defining" it, as in "'One never knows' signifies that the future is unpredictable and uncertain." What they don't say is that Waller (and Basie?) used the phrase to mock "proper" English, with its use of "One never knows, does one?" rather than "You never know, do ya?" That was in the days when black people in movies still tended to talk like idiots and clowns. One doesn't want to suggest equal intelligence, does one?
I broke into journalism as a copy editor, and I still take pleasure in the knowledge, even though I violate the rules endlessly.
Fascinated by the terms for things I didn’t know had names at all, and the proper order for symbols in footnotes. Thank you😊
I agree about footnotes being comments and endnotes being citations. Sadly for my researching students, Google Docs only allows for footnotes (yes, my colleagues have had to adjust).
Adore both Dorothy and Fats.
Manicules!
Speaking of ebooks, that catchphrase system of note designation would drive me up the wall, through the ceiling, and into the neighbor's apartment, sobbing. How are they linked? Is the phrase within the text hyperlinked to the note? Isn't that really homely? I don't know what PRH's style is for hyperlinks within text (they should be underlined and in a color, for accessibility purposes), so a number, unless in three or four digits, would be much less distracting than a phrase or two per paragraph, or even every other paragraph or every third. (I used to make tens, sometimes hundreds, of ebooks a year of all types, beginning in the early years of the KindleKoboNook era, so have done a lot of wall climbing. No more, I'm thrilled to say.)
To be honest, the ebooks were not ever my fiefdom (one has only so many brain cells, and there are only so many hours in the workday), but I’ve been led to believe that PRH ebooks are extremely soundly constructed, including giving readers the ability to journey from text to notes and back again.
You’d have to test-drive one!
I know some of those charged with the sacred task of the transformation of immortal words into 1s and 0s at PRH, and they are indeed top-notch. Trailblazers, in fact.
And congratulations for leaving ebooks to someone else's fief. (Is that correct to say? Does someone have a fief? Or does the fief have them?)
After years making and testing and advocating for and developing and writing about ebooks, I don't ever want to read one again. Funny, I spent many more years typesetting and have no problem picking up a stack of papers glued to slightly heavier paper.