I don't get the word "stereotype"

[Murasaki312a]

I don’t get the word “stereotype” for prejudging people based on race, gender, religion, etc. If anything, it seems like it would be monotype…I looked it up and think that maybe it has something to do with typesetting and “fitting a mold” for the type. Is this right?

[toadspittle]

Dictionary.com does a better job than Merriam Webster on this one:

Printing. A metal printing plate cast from a matrix molded from a raised printing surface, such as type.

So, originally, you’ve got this tray full of type, which is made up of separate movable letters, spacers, etc.

But if you want to distribute your typeset page more widely (or just don’t want to muck up your original dies), you make an impression of the original tray with a matrix (see http://home.vicnet.net.au/~typo/collect/artefact/stereo.htm for more) and then cast a metal stereotype from that.

The stereotype is fixed. So, unlike the original, moveable type, it can’t be changed. Like some people’s overly broad preconceived notions about people and things.

[capybara]

If you go back to the Greek it’s from stereos-- firm or solid. So it suggests a ‘type’ (in a metaphysical/conceptual sense) that is overly rigid. Does that make sense?

[capybara]

(Oh, and the stereo-rpefix meaning solid comes to refer to tangible, three-dimensional, plastic-ness, hence the typographical use of stereotype, or steeroscope, etc.)

[Larry_Mudd]

Also related-- cliche.

This is an early printing term, as well.

As I understand it, the printers often ran out of certain words

or letters they had often packed into a “cliche”. . .this is the

original meaning of the term cliche. . .and thus, being unwilling

to unpack the cliches, and thus you will see some substitutions

that look very odd. . .such as the exchanges of u for v, v for u,

above. . .and you may wonder why they did it this way, presuming

Shakespeare did not actually write the play in this manner. . . .

From the notes here.

[Murasaki312a]

Thanks for clearing that up…

Deb

[Fretful_Porpentine]

you will see some substitutions that look very odd. . .such as the exchanges of u for v, v for u, above. . .and you may wonder why they did it this way, presuming Shakespeare did not actually write the play in this manner. . . .

Most likely, Shakespeare did write the play in this manner; you see the same “substitutions” in handwritten manuscripts. People simply regarded u and v as one letter with two different sounds, the same way we have several y sounds in modern English (you, sky, gypsy). Typically, the Elizabethans used v at the beginning of a word and u in the middle, but otherwise the two forms are interchangeable.