Flong Time, No See

This book brings together work I’ve researched and published over the last seven years, revised and expanded for this publication. These are stories about how we made and shared the written word—and what we lost along the way.

The print edition is a 352-page paperback in a 6×9-inch (15×23 cm) format with a full-color cover and a black-and-white interior. The ebook edition comes as DRM-free PDF and EPUB files.

The stories included are:

• Flong Time, No See: The history of a forgotten material that allowed the evolution of printing, the growth of newspapers, and syndication. Even the name is fun.
• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Flan: How the word for a flat French pastry became the name for a printer’s mold—and how stereotype and cliché went from the foundry floor to figures of speech.
• The Typewriter Is Not a Typesetter: A 1919 wildcat typesetting strike led some magazines to conclude that typewriters had finally reached the quality necessary to produce type for printing. They were wrong.
• Eradicate the Type Lice: Printers played nasty tricks on apprentices, and only some felt guilty about it later. It was part of a mild hazing process that lasted seemingly for centuries.
• When Typesetters Were Paid to Set Copy and Throw It Away: Typesetters were paid to set copy that was thrown away to avoid intrusion on their monopoly. Even the Supreme Court got involved—and said it was legitimate!
• A Look into Lorem Ipsum: The most reproduced and misunderstood text of the last 40 years doesn’t mean anything. How did it get that way?
• Reading the Reprints: Books hide information about revisions through markings that can obscure the authoritative version of an author’s text or a non-fiction work.
• The Truth Is in the Stars: Newspapers used to publish as many as 10 different editions every day. Learn to read the historic and modern stars, symbols, and text that lets you decipher which edition is which.
• You Can’t Quote Me on It! Usenet birthed a style of quotation that we continue to use. But it has roots in ancient texts.
• Not Just Another Boilerplate Response: The literal origin of the term boilerplate reveals how it transformed, quickly, into a metaphor in printing and in legalese.
• That London Underground Typeface? Look Again: The typeface in the London Underground isn’t quite what it seems. Even experts get confused.
• Putting Together the Pieces of Color: The past is full of color, but how do we take it apart? Understanding an era of colorful, complex wooden type.
• Aligning a Rocky Road for Centuries: Making baselines among fonts the same didn’t take a straight path. Yet, it took centuries to evolve a common one.
• You’re as Cold as Type: Learn about the transition from hot-metal to “cold” phototype and CRT type, when lead was finally given the heave-ho.
• Take a Peek Inside Libraries, Museums, & Archives: Where to see stereotype plates, flongs, and the rest of this history for yourself, and the people who worked like hell to preserve it.

The book also includes a glossary, short biographies, a bibliography, and an index.