After last week's column regarding old seafaring expressions still in everyday use, I thought we could take a look at a few sayings that have their origins in newspapers.
Perhaps the most obvious is "hot off the press", meaning the latest news. During the printing process, friction causes the press to heat up and if you grab the paper off the press it can be quite hot. I had personal experience of this in my early days at the Bangkok Post on Ratchadamnoen Avenue.
For much of 1970 I was "late sub'', a not very popular job as you were the last member of the editorial staff to leave the office in the wee hours of the morning. A key part of the duties was to check the newspaper as it came "hot off the press" to ensure there were no major cock-ups. It was usually about 2am and my excitement of the press thundering away was always tinged with nervousness that a horrible error could slip through.
The press was on the ground floor with a big window facing the avenue, so passers-by could see inside and even at that late hour a few pedestrians would stop to watch the Goss Community press crank into action. When the head printer hit the "launch" button I found it quite a buzz, a bit like witnessing a rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral, admittedly without the countdown.
The most enjoyable part was chatting with the ladies who collected the papers off the press and prepared them for the motorcycle delivery boys. From grannies to teens they were such a happy lot and they loved having a chat despite my mangling of the Thai language. There was always plenty of laughter and you couldn't have asked for a better end to a night's work.
The white bus
Once my duties were over I would grab a few "hot off the press" newspapers and dash across the road to catch the white Nai Lert No 2 bus which would whisk me through the night towards my Sukhumvit home for the grand sum of 50 satang. There was a certain sense of excitement at having the latest news in my hands and I would often give a copy to passengers. I was probably quite a scary sight at 2am covered in newspaper ink from checking those "hot" copies minutes before. However, I did refrain from shouting "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!"
P's and Q's
Not surprisingly the printing process in the old days spawned quite a few expressions. "Stereotype" and "cliche" were both French printing terms based on a solid printing plate that doesn't change. However, it was not until the 1950s "stereotype" came into common usage for an oversimplified characteristic of a person or group. Similarly, "cliche" emerged from a printing plate that could be used over and over again. Readers of PostScript will unfortunately be all too familiar with cliches, although to be fair, I try to avoid them like the plague.
In the old days of hot metal presses the type had to be set upside down and backwards making it very difficult to read. It was particularly hard to distinguish between the lower-case P's and Q's which were mirror images of one another and easy to confuse. Thus came the expression for apprentice printers to "mind your p's and q's", which later developed into an expression for being careful with your language and behaviour. There are many other versions concerning the origin of "p's and q's" which I will spare you.
Sorted out
During the printing process there was something called a "dab" which was used to supply the right amount of ink to the printing process .
The person responsible became known as a "dab hand" and from that came the expression "to be a dab hand" or skilled at a certain ability.
"Sort" was the name of a single piece of type with a letter. Sometimes, when things were not well organised the printers ran out of "sorts" of a particular letter, causing a lot of frustration.
Hence the expression to be "out of sorts" when things are going a bit wobbly.
Headline news
Sticking with newspapers, one thing that stops sub-editors going totally nuts is coming up with memorable headlines. During World War II a report concerning Britain's Field Marshal Montgomery carried the splendid headline "Monty flies back to front". Another wartime report which perhaps could have been better expressed was "8th Army push bottles up Germans". In a cheekier vein was "Queen Mary having bottom scraped", the ship that is.
Bored sub-editors find crime stories fertile ground for corny jokes, particularly in the British tabloids. Thus we get "Man steals clock -- faces time'' and the thought provoking "Lingerie shipment hijacked -- thief gives police the slip."
I quite like "Defendant's speech ends in long sentence", although it doesn't quite capture the imagination of "Magistrates to act on strip show". Another that creates a gripping image is "Policeman saw man squatting on top of wife with raised chopper."
Final word
One of my favourites comes from the now defunct News of the World, which carried a headline that had everything: "Nudist welfare man's model wife fell for the Chinese hypnotist from the Co-op bacon factory." Now that's one you won't see in the Bangkok Post.
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