It is quite clearly set out on the title-page in previous editions of these Rules and Examples, that they were intended especiallyfor Compositors and Readers at the Clarendon Press.Consequently it seems necessary to explain why an edition or impression is now offered to so much of the General Public as is interested in the technicalities of Typography, or wishes to be guided to a choice amidst alternative spellings.
On the production of the First Edition at the Oxford Press, copies were placed at the disposal of all Readers, Compositors, and Compositor-apprentices; and other copies found their way into the possession of Authors and Editors of books then in the printers’ hands. Subsequently, friends of authors, and readers and compositors in other printing-offices, began to ask for copies, which were always supplied without charge. By and by applications for copies were received from persons who had no absolute claim to be supplied gratuitously; but as many of such requests came from Officials of the King’s Government at Home, in the Colonies, and in India, it was thought advisable, on the whole, to continue the practice of presentation.
Recently, however, it became known that copies of the booklet wereon salein London.A correspondent wrote that he had just bought a copy ‘at the Stores’; and as it seems more than complaisant to provide gratuitously what may afterwards be sold for profit, there is no alternative but to publish this little book.
As to the origin and progress of the work, it was begun in 1864, when the compiler was a member of the London Association of Correctors of the Press. With the assistance of a small band of fellow members employed in the same printing-office as himself, a first list of examples was drawn up, to furnish a working basis.
Fate so ordained that, in course of years, the writer became in succession general manager of three London printing-houses. In each of these institutions additions were made to his selected list of words, which, in this way, gradually expanded—embodying what compositors term ‘the Rule of the House’.
In 1883, as Controller of the Oxford Press, the compiler began afresh the work of adaptation; but pressure of other duties deferred its completion nearly ten years, for the first edition is dated 1893. Even at that date the book lacked the seal of final approval, being only part of a system of printing-office management.
In due course, SirJ. A. H. Murrayand Dr.Henry Bradley, editors oftheOxford Dictionary,were kind enough to revise and approve all the English spellings. Bearing the stamp of their sanction, the booklet has an authority which it could not otherwise have claimed.
To later editions ProfessorRobinson Ellisand Mr.H. Stuart Jonescontributed two appendices, containing instructions for the Division of Words in Latin and Greek; and the section on the German Language was revised by Dr.Karl Breul, Reader in Germanic in the University of Cambridge.
The present issue is characterized by many additions and some rearrangement. The compiler has encouraged the proofreaders of the University Press from time to time to keep memoranda of troublesome words in frequent—or indeed in occasional—use, not recorded in previous issues of the ‘Rules’, and to make notes of the mode of printing them which is decided on. As each edition of the book becomes exhausted such words are reconsidered, and their approved form finally incorporated into the pages of the forthcoming edition. The same remark applies to new words which appear unexpectedly, like new planets, and take their place in what SirJames Murraycalls the ‘World of Words’. Such instances asair-man, sabotage, stepney-wheel, will occur to every newspaper reader.
Lastly, it ought to be added that in one or two cases, a particular way of spelling a word or punctuating a sentence has been changed. This does not generally mean that an error has been discovered in the ‘Rules’; but rather that the fashion has altered, and that it is necessary to guide the compositor accordingly.
H. H.
January 1912.
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