Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

user109038

Member Since

July 17, 2020

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

2

Bio

Latest Comments

“pi the type”

  • July 17, 2020, 12:58pm

I took a course in typesetting in the 1960s. We used hot-metal slugs which we pulled from a drawer. Each of the hundred compartments stored one symbol, perhaps up to 50 slugs of each. Sorting the slugs back into the compartments was an onerous but necessary task. The professor said, Whatever you do, don't pi the type (spill the drawer). Because it would take hours to re-sort thousands of tiny slugs.