Members of this list are in an excellent position to introduce a English-language term. All we need is for at least three people to agree on a term, and use it in a publication, right?
This is exactly how the word “boojum” became a standard term in fluid dynamics, or so I’ve been told by physicist friends. A major scholarly journal didn’t want to accept “boojum” in an article that N. David Mermin wrote about the phenomenon. The editors argued that you can’t just declare there’s a term for something if no one else has used it, so Mermin would have to use one of the various round-about descriptions of the phenomenon instead. Legend has it Mermin contacted colleagues around the world, convinced a few of them to use “boojum” in papers submitted to more lenient scientific journals, then successfully used those publications as supporting evidence in his battle.
Possible candidates:
- “one-piece border block” (as Ad suggests) because we already talk about “border blocks”
- “factotum block” as the logical extension of the long-used printers’ term “factotum initial” (where “factotum” means “able to do [just about] anything”)
I’ll be teaching “The History of Printed Book Illustration in the West” at
Rare Book School this coming summer, so if list-members could come to a consensus on terminology before, say, May 2021, that would be great :)
Best wishes,
Erin.
I now remember the word 'factotum' indeed, but wasn't aware it was only used for the smaller border blocks for initials.
Checking my dictionaries for the printing trade I find: factotum initial (English) = initiale encastrée (French) = Kassetteninitiale (German). This would be the combination of the surrounding block (= factotum) and the inserted initial.
Perhaps 'one-piece border block' might be suited?
I’ve also never come across a specific term in English. For me, it usually comes up when I want to distinguish the one-piece kind from the kind made up of four pieces (or eight, if it has corner blocks) so I’ll say “one-piece border frame” rather than “separate border blocks arranged to make a frame.” The advantage of mostly talking about them rather than writing about them is that I can then say “It’s like a factotum initial, but instead of a little space for a piece of type, there’s a big space for another block.”
Cheers,
Erin.
From: Announcement list for BlocksPlatesStones <
[log in to unmask]>
On Behalf Of Elizabeth Savage
Sent: October 1, 2021 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]Subject: Re: English term wanted
Ines, this is one English term we all might might spend a very long time searching for!
I’ve seen 'passe-partout' used for (fairly small) woodblocks with a (fairly small) hole for type, for example to allow a serial number in moveable type or an initial. I don’t believe I've seen the term used for a larger border, with a larger hole.
I’ve seen ‘frame’ used for a woodcut intended to surround another, and ‘border’ when a woodcut surrounds text. I don’t know if this is standard, though, and ‘frame’ in this context might imply the imitation of a physical frame.
I don’t know if there is a specific term for the woodblock(s) used to print a border, or if there needs to be. Would a descriptive approach, something like ‘woodblock for a border’ or ‘woodblock for a frame’, be appropriate?
I would be most interested in the final result of this debate. Being of Slavic origins I am searching for English terms very often...
Best,
Ines
---
doc. dr. Ines Vodopivec
2021-10-01 15:48, je Ad Stijnman napisal
I think title-border / Titeleinfassung would be the term for a decorative border around the letterpress text of a booktitle; zie example. This would be the term used after printing, i.e. for the image as it eventually appears on paper. However, I'm looking for the name of the cut woodblock itself.
German book people usually use the term "Titeleinfassung"
In English I would use "title-border"
Greetings from NYC
Armin
Could anyone help me out, please? What would be the English term for what I call a 'border decoration block'? It concerns a 16th/17th-century decoratively cut woodblock with a hole in the middle into which fits another woodblock, the whole to be printed together; see examples attached. The 16th-century French term is escarreur. Any German term would also be appreciated.
Chambre of Commerce Utrecht (NL) no. 63006383
Chambre of Commerce Utrecht (NL) no. 63006383
To unsubscribe from the BLOCKSPLATESSTONES list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=BLOCKSPLATESSTONES&A=1
To unsubscribe from the BLOCKSPLATESSTONES list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=BLOCKSPLATESSTONES&A=1
Chambre of Commerce Utrecht (NL) no. 63006383
