At work, I sometimes have to translate press releases from French to English. One thing I’ve noticed is that they all have the symbol -30- at the bottom. My “senior co-worker” confirms that all press releases end in -30-. Is this so in English too? What does it mean?
End of message.
Well, I gathered… but in what code, where did it originate, etc.
<WAG> Maybe it’s the ASCII control code for “record separator”? </WAG>
Look here.
It’s from Morse and telegraphy days. The operator used to send XXX at the end of transmission, or 30 in Roman numerals. Cite .
Intewwesting… thanks!
I have to admit I’m skeptical about the “XXX” story in the link that don’t ask posted, since it is the first time I’ve ever heard it. The practice of using “30” for “end” does however go back to the early days of telegraphy – it was one of the Western Union’s “92” codes. A fuller list is at: “92” Codes.
At the Medill School of Journalism, they taught us that the -30- also came from “xxx”. It wouldn’t be the first time, though, that something I learned in school was incorrect.
Can we throw “###” into the mix? Many press releases use that instead of -30-, and where I work, “###” is the approved way to signal the end of the press release.
So, anyone know where the “###” comes from? Is it more or less correct than -30-? Newer or older?
-30- is steeped in lore. In addition to the old telegraph code, there’s also a legend that a crusty old copy editor once counted the words in a news story and wrote the number (30) at the bottom of the page.
There is no “official” way to end a news release. In additin to -30- (note, the dashes are always included) I’ve seen ###, oOo, “End” and a few other marks.
On the other hand, using the word “More” at the bottom of the page is the one accepted way to say the news release continues on to another page.
Then, he went to work for the Latrobe Brewing Company …
Well, that’s “33”. If the folks in Latrobe had used just plain tanks instead of “glass-lined tanks” it would have been 30. 
-30- or - # # # - as the end of a press release (for reasons others seem to have given) is simply the alternative to - MORE - at the foot of a page that does not end a press release. It makes clear to a harried copyeditor whether he’s got the full article in his hot little hands or is still missing a page. Properly, all pages of press releases should end with one of the three codes – -more- to indicate that the article continues or -30- or -###- to indicate that it doesn’t, for that reason.
Or 31, if you’re using base-10 math instead of whatever bizarro-world system gave you 30. 
An old newspaper man stepping into the mix.
-30- does in fact come from the days of filing stories by telegraph. When the telegrapher (and most major newsorganizations had their own) took the message he would put the “30” on there. It then went to rewrite and then editors (“more” at the bottom of each page of the unfinished story (however, if it were rolled newsprint it would be one long page).
Once the editor had edited it, he would put his initials on the upper right corner of the first page and the cross hatch (handwritten version of #) at the end of whatever he determined was the final page. Generally speaking, the typesetters would not touch the thing without that cross hatch mark on it. Rewrite or editors probably wouldn’t touch the stuff without the -30-.
At least that was pretty much the way it was when I started in the days of hot lead.
TV
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970314 is Maven’s Word of the Day. This is Random House’s site and is the best available info on slang etymology.
While I would have sided with whitetho, due to previous threads on subjects similar to this, it appears indeed that XXX was the first usage.