Why print the book title on every page?
D.F. Manno
comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
Google. Any ideas?
--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
Hey, Gov. Palin: Jesus Christ was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate
was a governor.
Opus the Penguin
> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when
> the comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a
> book printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I
> can't think of a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right
> search terms for Google. Any ideas?
>
Maybe it's so the printer/bookbinder doesn't get confused.
--
Opus the Penguin
I too generally dislike inspirational or religous or irreligious
messages accompanying my purchase of fungible consumer products. -
Richard R. Hershberger
xho...@gmail.com
> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
> comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
> printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
> a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
> Google. Any ideas?
None of the books I've looked at just now have that property. They mostly
have the chapter title, perhaps also the section title or in compilations
the chapter author (and a couple have guide-words, like dictionaries do).
But those are were all academic/professionally works.
Maybe in fiction, they do this so people what book it is when the cover
has been ripped off of a remaindered book.
Xho
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Bill Bonde { ''Well, boys, I reckon this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies'')
"D.F. Manno" wrote:
>
> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
> comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
> printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
> a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
> Google. Any ideas?
>
Obviously it helps if you keep forgetting which book you are
reading.
Glenn Dowdy
"Bill Bonde { ''Well, boys, I reckon this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe
with the Roosskies'')" <tributyl...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:48C5A0B6...@yahoo.co.uk...
That's about the stupidest thing I've ever read on afu.
Glenn D.
M C Hamster
wrote:
>I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
>comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
>printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
>a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
>Google. Any ideas?
That's pretty spooky. My reaction was to say "No, almost no books do
that". I've found one that doesn't, but the other 5 I checked do it.
In many cases, the book title is on the left side, and the right side
has the chapter heading. I truly do not believe I ever noticed this
before, in many decades of reading books. That's kind of amazing.
--
M C Hamster "Big Wheel Keep on Turning" -- Creedence Clearwater Revival
Jeff Wisnia
> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
> comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
> printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
> a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
> Google. Any ideas?
>
I don't know about that one, but I did figure out why nearly every book
which doesen't have the printing on its spine placed so that it runs
horizontally when the book is placed normally on a bookshelf will have
the printing on its spine running from the top down.
It makes it easier to read what's on the spines of all the books on a
shelf just by tipping your head to the right.
It's also so that when the (closed) book is placed face up on a coffee
table you can read what's printed on the spine without having to stand
on your head.
Every once in a while I run into a maverick book with printing running
along the spine which doesn't follow that rule, and wonder why....
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.
jeffinputnam
That's because it was never there until the question was asked and
then.... like magic! it appeared.
Book are like that.
J
Don K
news:4vidnQ2qTND7OFjV...@posted.choiceonecommunications...
> I don't know about that one, but I did figure out why nearly every book which doesen't
> have the printing on its spine placed so that it runs horizontally when the book is
> placed normally on a bookshelf will have the printing on its spine running from the top
> down.
>
> It makes it easier to read what's on the spines of all the books on a shelf just by
> tipping your head to the right.
>
> It's also so that when the (closed) book is placed face up on a coffee table you can
> read what's printed on the spine without having to stand on your head.
It may also work that way on other tables.
> Every once in a while I run into a maverick book with printing running along the spine
> which doesn't follow that rule, and wonder why....
Those are to be used when the tables are turned.
Don
Bill Bonde { ''Well, boys, I reckon this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies'')
That's incredible.
Pierre Jelenc
>
> Every once in a while I run into a maverick book with printing running
> along the spine which doesn't follow that rule, and wonder why....
French books are overwhelmingly printed in the other direction, except for
comic books, which in my sampling are close to 50/50.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
The Gigometer www.web-ho.com/gigs.html
The NYC Beer Guide www.nycbeer.org
Greg Johnson
wrote:
>I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
>comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
>printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
>a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
>Google. Any ideas?
It's so that when the binding fails on 3 of your books at once, you
can play 600-page pick-up and still have a chance of reassembling
them.
M. Shirley Chong
> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
> comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
> printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
> a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
> Google. Any ideas?
A totally wild, off the cuff, no Googling involved guess: it's a
hold over from when printers printed books on full sheets of paper,
customers bought the books and then took them to the binder to be
bound. A binder might have many books in various stages of
construction; having the title printed on each page helped ensure
that the pages from various books didn't get mixed up.
When the binder collated the book back then, it did not mean what it
means now. Collating a book meant checking through the signatures
and verifying they were in the proper order and oriented the proper
way. Each signature was initialled and numbered lightly in pencil on
the lower right hand corner before being sewn together. Printing the
title on each page meant that it was easy to verify that all the
signatures belonged to the same book during collation.
I could be completely wrong.
Shirley
M. Shirley Chong
>> Every once in a while I run into a maverick book with printing running along the spine
>> which doesn't follow that rule, and wonder why....
Don K wrote:
> Those are to be used when the tables are turned.
But it's very rude to read a book at a formal dinner!
Shirley
art...@yahoo.com
nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies'')"
"If it's Tuesday, this must be War and Peace""
Bob Ward
reckon this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies'')"
OK, you win.
Bill Bonde { ''Well, boys, I reckon this is it, nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies'')
That's what I'm saying.
Veronique
> On Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:52:09 -0400, "D.F. Manno" <dfma...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when the
> >comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a book
> >printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I can't think of
> >a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right search terms for
> >Google. Any ideas?
>
> That's pretty spooky. My reaction was to say "No, almost no books do
> that". I've found one that doesn't, but the other 5 I checked do it.
> In many cases, the book title is on the left side, and the right side
> has the chapter heading. I truly do not believe I ever noticed this
> before, in many decades of reading books. That's kind of amazing.
I've noticed this and love it, especially the chapter heading. It
gives me a feeling of security to see book title and chapter heading
right there at the top of each page.
V.
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
Veronique
I would like you to work a dog into this explanation.
M. Shirley Chong
>> A totally wild, off the cuff, no Googling involved guess: it's a
>> hold over from when printers printed books on full sheets of paper,
>> customers bought the books and then took them to the binder to be
>> bound. A binder might have many books in various stages of
>> construction; having the title printed on each page helped ensure
>> that the pages from various books didn't get mixed up.
>>
>> When the binder collated the book back then, it did not mean what it
>> means now. Collating a book meant checking through the signatures
>> and verifying they were in the proper order and oriented the proper
>> way. Each signature was initialled and numbered lightly in pencil on
>> the lower right hand corner before being sewn together. Printing the
>> title on each page meant that it was easy to verify that all the
>> signatures belonged to the same book during collation.
>>
>> I could be completely wrong.
Veronique wrote:
> I would like you to work a dog into this explanation.
Perhaps Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Spaniel Flush (biography
written by Virginia Woolf) saw a few such books in his mistress's
collection?
Shirley
Hactar
Pierre Jelenc <rc...@panix.com> wrote:
> Jeff Wisnia <jwi...@conversent.net> writes:
> >
> > Every once in a while I run into a maverick book with printing running
> > along the spine which doesn't follow that rule, and wonder why....
>
> French books are overwhelmingly printed in the other direction, except for
> comic books, which in my sampling are close to 50/50.
The German books I've seen follow the French custom, though I haven't
seen any German comic books (coincidence? I think not).
--
-eben QebWe...@vTerYizUonI.nOetP royalty.mine.nu:81
They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety. -- Ben Franklin
Mark Brader
>> I don't know about that one, but I did figure out why nearly every book
>> which doesen't have the printing on its spine placed so that it runs
>> horizontally when the book is placed normally on a bookshelf will have
>> the printing on its spine running from the top down.
Actually, that's only true for "nearly every book" in the English-speaking
countries, and presumably some others. French books, and I believe German
books, go the other way. I confess to never having noticed which way
French-Canadian publishers do it.
>> It makes it easier to read what's on the spines of all the books on a
>> shelf just by tipping your head to the right.
Nope. That's only a reason to have them all the same way.
>> It's also so that when the (closed) book is placed face up on a coffee
>> table you can read what's printed on the spine without having to stand
>> on your head.
Right. That's the reason why the way we do it is right.
Pierre Jelenc:
> French books are overwhelmingly printed in the other direction, except for
> comic books...
There, see? Told you so.
The advantage of *that* way, where you mentally tilt your head to the
left to read them, is that when you scan along the shelf the titles of
successive books are in order. Volume 2 of the encyclopedia comes after
Volume 1, not before. This is, of course, completely unimportant.
Now go read "The Book on the Bookshelf" (1999, Knopf, ISBN 0-375-40649-2)
by Henry Petroski.
--
Mark Brader | "It can be amusing, even if painful, to watch the
Toronto | ethnocentrism of those who are convinced their
m...@vex.net | local standards are universal." -- Tom Chapin
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Bob Ward
<veroniq...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>I would like you to work a dog into this explanation.
On the Internet, nobody knows...
Mark Steese
news:Xns9B13A66B2484Bop...@127.0.0.1:
> D.F. Manno (dfm...@mail.com) wrote:
>
>> I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central over the weekend when
>> the comedian raised an interesting question. Why is the title of a
>> book printed at the top of each page (or every other page)? I
>> can't think of a good reason, and I'm not coming up with the right
>> search terms for Google. Any ideas?
>
> Maybe it's so the printer/bookbinder doesn't get confused.
That would be my guess. I'm not sure how paperbacks are printed, but a
common method for clothbound books is to print multiple signatures and sew
them into the binding. A successful printer or bookbinder will have a whole
bunch of different jobs in various stages of completion at any given time,
and will need a simple method of making sure the signatures don't get mixed
up.
--
Mark Steese
=======================
The disturbed eyes rise,
furtive, foiled, dissatisfied
from meditation on the true
and insignificant.
Mark Brader
>>> (or every other page)?
>> Maybe it's so the printer/bookbinder doesn't get confused.
> That would be my guess. I'm not sure how paperbacks are printed, but a
> common method for clothbound books is to print multiple signatures and sew
> them into the binding.
You don't need the title on every second page to identify a signature,
though. I remember reading books from one publisher where they had a
note for that purpose at the bottom of the first page of each signature:
it consisted of the initials of the title, a dash, and a sequence letter.
For example, "S.C.--A". I'm pretty sure the publisher was British;
I think the books where I saw this included some Agatha Christie novels,
printed quite a while ago.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto, m...@vex.net
#define MSB(type) (~(((unsigned type)-1)>>1))
Richard R. Hershberger
For what it's worth, I think you have got it. Old books would also
sometimes have as a subscript at the bottom of the page the first word
of the next page, to help keep things in order. Number the pages
accomplishes the same thing better, but books from the 16th century
often didn't have page numbers, though they did sometimes have folio
numbers. In any case, while the little subscripts have been replaced,
having the book title on each page has more or less stuck around. So
the answer to the original question is "because they always have".
Richard R. Hershberger
M C Hamster
>Jeff Wisnia:
>>> I don't know about that one, but I did figure out why nearly every book
>>> which doesen't have the printing on its spine placed so that it runs
>>> horizontally when the book is placed normally on a bookshelf will have
>>> the printing on its spine running from the top down.
>
>Actually, that's only true for "nearly every book" in the English-speaking
>countries, and presumably some others. French books, and I believe German
>books, go the other way. I confess to never having noticed which way
>French-Canadian publishers do it.
>
>>> It makes it easier to read what's on the spines of all the books on a
>>> shelf just by tipping your head to the right.
>
>Nope. That's only a reason to have them all the same way.
>
>>> It's also so that when the (closed) book is placed face up on a coffee
>>> table you can read what's printed on the spine without having to stand
>>> on your head.
>
>Right. That's the reason why the way we do it is right.
>
But you fail to realize that the back of a French book is actually its
cover. Those nutty French!
M C Hamster
Why didn't they have page numbers? That must have been a PITA for the
academic community's citations. I wonder what genius figured out
putting page numbers on might be a good idea.
Blinky the Shark
You can thank the footnote lobby for the eventual inclusion of page
numbering.
--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
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Jerry Bauer
> But you fail to realize that the back of a French book is actually its
> cover. Those nutty French!
That would explain the suppositories.
http://www.frenchgardening.com/postcard.html?pid=3180490964157568
(Medication for a sore throat.)
M C Hamster
wrote:
Wow. That just explains so much about them, thanks.