# Archaic Analogies: Cut, Paste, and the Clipboard
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 30, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656 "2010-09-30T20:51:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/41 "2010-10-02T15:40:54Z")
OK, what name would you use as a metaphor for stuff temporarily cut and ready to be pasted down? (10 points, be creative)
“The Side of the Monitor Where All the Sticky Notes Go” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.
(I recall a small-town newspaper once many years ago with an add “looking for part-time tyesetters”.)
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/42 "2010-10-02T20:43:50Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#):
>
> My ex-union-printer friend (now a jazz guitarist) used to say that the typesetters’ union gave everyone a spelling, reading and writing test, and…
>
> …the top 20% flunked.
> [@md2000](#):
>
> (I recall a small-town newspaper once many years ago with an add “looking for part-time tyesetters”.)
😃
Also, literacy in a different language didn’t help much. The best part was after the editors went home, and an article had to be shortened. They usually just cut it off. But the layup artists would do that too. And nobody kept track of the page jumps after the initial layup.
The great irony is that computers made all that work more efficient, then destroyed the newspaper business that needed it.
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/43 "2010-10-03T02:05:05Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> OK, what name would you use as a metaphor for stuff temporarily cut and ready to be pasted down? (10 points, be creative)
> “The Side of the Monitor Where All the Sticky Notes Go” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.
>
> (I recall a small-town newspaper once many years ago with an add “looking for part-time tyesetters”.)
When I did typesetting/layout/past-up I always kept my “clips” on the light table (or temporarily in place on the layout-sheet [Galley sheet? Dummy board?]). So I like the term “light table”.
Problems with that are:
1. Most paste-up folks had so much copy there wouldn’t have been enough room on a light table for all of it. I gather they used “clip boards”.
2. A light table is more often used for photography purposes, I think. We used light tables because that’s where we did both the paste-up and the “spotting of the pre-press page negs” (I can’t remember the real term. It’s where you examine the full-page negatives of the layout boards for errant white lines and spots and cover them over with a special red paint or marker so those spots don’t get burned onto the plate.)
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### Author:  [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/44 "2010-10-03T02:15:54Z")
These sort of archaic analogies go back much further than that. The vertical space between two lines of type on a page is referred to as “leading” (rhymes with “sledding”). This goes clear back to the first days of movable type, when long slabs of lead were used to separate the lines.
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### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/45 "2010-10-03T08:48:47Z")
> [@LeeshaJoy](#):
>
> These sort of archaic analogies go back much further than that. The vertical space between two lines of type on a page is referred to as “leading” (rhymes with “sledding”). This goes clear back to the first days of movable type, when long slabs of lead were used to separate the lines.
Whoa. I’ve always wondered what that meant. Thanks!
What about kerning?
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/46 "2010-10-03T13:42:35Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> (I recall a small-town newspaper once many years ago with an add “looking for part-time tyesetters”.)
[Gaudere’s Law](http://ianferrel.wordpress.com/2005/05/19/gauderes-law/) in action. 🙂
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/47 "2010-10-03T14:01:05Z")
> [@Reply](#):
>
> > [@LeeshaJoy](#):
> >
> > These sort of archaic analogies go back much further than that. The vertical space between two lines of type on a page is referred to as “leading” (rhymes with “sledding”). This goes clear back to the first days of movable type, when long slabs of lead were used to separate the lines.
>
> Whoa. I’ve always wondered what that meant. Thanks!
>
> What about kerning?
It means the same today as it did in cold-press days: the process of adjusting the spacing of letter pairs so they look correct. Here is the definition of “kern” which shows the etymology: [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kern](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kern)
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### Author:  [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/48 "2010-10-03T14:36:54Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> First off, doesn’t _anyone_ but me use Control-Delete and Control-Insert
I vaguely remember something about this, but thought it was obsolete after Windows 3.1.
I haven’t had a keyboard with an “Insert” key in 10 years. Actually, my Microsoft keyboard has “Insert”, but you have to press Ctrl-SysReq to get Insert, so there’s no way to Ctrl-Insert anyway.
Speaking of obsolete – SysReq! I believe it was used to quickly kill a program and get the operating system command prompt in DOS.
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### Author:  [@DHMO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DHMO)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/49 "2010-10-03T15:31:19Z")
> [@Derleth](#):
>
> > [@JKellyMap](#):
> >
> > Hell, what about “computer”? How often do \*you \*use the darned thing to add up a couple of numbers or whatever?
>
> Originally, a ‘computer’ was a person who got paid to do arithmetic. This meant that back in the Old Days (up through the 1950s at least) computer names would often end in -AC (JOHNNIAC, ILLIAC, SILLIAC, etc.) for _ **‘Automatic Computer’** _. (Also, _individual_ computers were named; mass-production of computers would come a bit later, and along with it the ability to do things like use one piece of software on more than one piece of hardware.)
>
> The original human computers not only had their jobs taken away, but their job title was used to name the machines that did it. I wonder how many of them got jobs as keypunch operators.
I always understood the -_AC_ to refer to _ **A** nalog **C** omputer_, as opposed to _ **D** igital **C** omputer_. In the early days (1950s and '60s) computers used vacuum tubes and gears, and would have analog outputs (dials and gauges, etc.) One of the first massive mainframes was called _UNIVAC_, for _ **Univ** _ersal _ **A** _nalog _ **C** _omputer. Science and Science-Fiction writer Isaac Azimov used to have fun parsing UNIVAC as _Uni-Vac,_ to denote “one vacuum tube.” HIs “Computer of the Future,” which he featured in many of his stories, was a planet-spanning mainframe called “MultiVac”, for “Many Vacuum Tubes.”
There was a certain amount of confusion when one of the early players in the computer manufacturing market was DEC, or “Digital Equipment Company [Corporation?].” I would tell people that this particular computer was “Digital,” as in, “…from DEC,” but they would hear, “…as opposed to Analog,” and respond, “Aren’t all computers digital these days?”
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/50 "2010-10-03T15:40:05Z")
> [@DHMO](#):
>
> > [@Derleth](#):
> >
> > Originally, a ‘computer’ was a person who got paid to do arithmetic. This meant that back in the Old Days (up through the 1950s at least) computer names would often end in -AC (JOHNNIAC, ILLIAC, SILLIAC, etc.) for _ **‘Automatic Computer’** _. (Also, _individual_ computers were named; mass-production of computers would come a bit later, and along with it the ability to do things like use one piece of software on more than one piece of hardware.)
> >
> > The original human computers not only had their jobs taken away, but their job title was used to name the machines that did it. I wonder how many of them got jobs as keypunch operators.
>
> I always understood the -_AC_ to refer to _ **A** nalog **C** omputer_, as opposed to _ **D** igital **C** omputer_. In the early days (1950s and '60s) computers used vacuum tubes and gears, and would have analog outputs (dials and gauges, etc.) One of the first massive mainframes was called _UNIVAC_, for _ **Univ** _ersal _ **A** _nalog _ **C** _omputer. Science and Science-Fiction writer Isaac Azimov used to have fun parsing UNIVAC as _Uni-Vac,_ to denote “one vacuum tube.” HIs “Computer of the Future,” which he featured in many of his stories, was a planet-spanning mainframe called “MultiVac”, for “Many Vacuum Tubes.”
>
> There was a certain amount of confusion when one of the early players in the computer manufacturing market was DEC, or “Digital Equipment Company [Corporation?].” I would tell people that this particular computer was “Digital,” as in, “…from DEC,” but they would hear, “…as opposed to Analog,” and respond, “Aren’t all computers digital these days?”
Not quite.
UNIVAC stood for Universal Automatic Computer. It was a purely digital processor, as opposed to analog computers which could only accept analog inputs and had limited “programmability” - they could do basic math, and integrations/differentiation and possibly some other functions, doing all this in the Analog domain, using amplifiers and filters.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/51 "2010-10-03T15:42:59Z")
an analog computer used continuous voltage inputs and had continuous voltage outputs which were read on a meter, video tube or paper plotter. could use vacuum tubes.
a digital computer has a few fixed voltage levels, can use vacuum tubes and can have lights, printed paper or video characters as output.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archaic-analogies-cut-paste-and-the-clipboard/555656/52 "2010-10-04T02:25:06Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> an analog computer used continuous voltage inputs and had continuous voltage outputs which were read on a meter, video tube or paper plotter. could use vacuum tubes.
>
> a digital computer has a few fixed voltage levels, can use vacuum tubes and can have lights, printed paper or video characters as output.
A digital computer can also be programmed, more often than not, and thus can be used to replace a range of specialized analog computers.
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