Printer’s Devil

While it’s been quite some time since the term printer’s devil may have been used, there was a time when the expression was quite common.  Back in the day, a printer’s devil was the errand boy in a printing establishment.  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain and Lyndon B. Johnson all had jobs as a printer’s devil when they were young lads.  In time, any errors that were found in print were referred to as a printer’s devil and so a printer’s devil also came to mean mistakes in the printed media.

On August 15, 2010 the Sunday Observer in Sri Lanka published a weekly column by Edwin Ariyadasa entitled, “Sunday Monologue.”  In that particular column, the following is found:

In some instances, the impish printer’s devil slinks past the keen eye of the editors, and gets embedded in the text of a column. On one glaring occasion, this miscreant was at work, on my column titled “World without Sir Arthur C.”  The mischievous printer’s devil, detected a letter I quoted. It was written by Sir Arthur C. on my 85th birthday. It began with the routine Dear Edwin. Resenting this endeavourment, the terrible imp, Printer’s Devil turned it with “Deer Ediwn.”

On January 19, 1954 the Calgary Herald ran this obituary about retired Senator William Henry Dennis who had passed away suddenly at the age of 66.  The obituary read in part:

Senator Dennis was appointed to the Senate in 1932 by Rt. Hon. R. B. Bennett, former Conservative prime minister.  He joined the Halifax Herald when he was 12 years old as a printer’s devil and worked his way in managing director and then publisher.  He returned to Ottawa Sunday night from his home in Halifax for resumption of Senate sittings tonight.  He died at his Ottawa residence.

On October 23, 1902 the Fielding Star newspaper for Kiwitea and Oroua counties in New Zealand ran a story entitled, “Church And The Press.”  The story addressed the Church Congress, the opening address by the Right Reverend Dr. Harmer and newspapers.  The following is found in this news report:

After this excellent tribute, the Congress was prepared to join with interest in a debate on “Church and Press,” when the first speaker was an Adelaid Pressman, Mr. W. J. Sowden, who declared himself and his brethren to be emphatically on the side of the angels.  “Although there is a printer’s devil in the newspaper office, there is also a chapel,” said Mr. Sowden, and a clergyman quoted, “When God erects a house of prayer, the devil builds a chapel there.”

Slipped between serious news stories in the January 18, 1853 edition of the British Colonist and North American Railway Journal was a 4-line poem signed quite simply, Printer’s Devil.  The poem, in its entirety is reproduced here.

A dollar a year, said Dick for the Sun,
Isn’t that cheap? — young son of a gun!
As “cheap as dirt” — said I with a quiz
And so it should be, for dirt it is.

In the song “Ode To The Printer’s Devil” composed by Ned Ward in June 1823, the author states that it is “an ode founded on fact” and is written for the printer’s devil “who brought me a proof to be corrected, and who fell asleep while it was undergoing correction: — being.”

On January 3, 1791 the Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer ran a story in which the expression “printer’s devil” is used and again a year later on May 7, 1792 in an obituary for Reverend John Lewis, Pastor a church in Wethersfield.

The first printer — as well as the first retailer of printed books — in England was translator and publisher, William Caxton (1422 – 1492) whose first book printed in England was the self-published, “Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres” on November 18, 1477.  But this was not his first shot at being a printer.  Because “[his] pen became worn, [his] hand weary, [his eye dimmed” he decided to set up a press in Bruges in 1473. 

At the time, the printing industry was in its infancy and it was significantly influenced by German printing.  The first book produced by William Caxton at this press and printed in English was ” Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye” in 1474, followed by “The Game And Playe Of The Chesse” published in 1476.  He published most of the English literature available in his day including Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

As a side note, Chaucer imported printing blocks and letters from Germany where there was no “the” sound.  To solve the problem of the non-existent “th” he placed the letter “y” in its place.  And so, “the” appeared as “ye” in published works and the practice of using “y” in place of “th” continued for another 200 years until publishers finally used “th” where “th” was meant to be used.

Rumour has it that he had an apprentice whose last name was Deville.  Unfortunately, Idiomation was unable to find proof that such an individual apprenticed under Caxton.  What Idiomation can confirm is that somewhere in the 300 years between William Caxton‘s death and the phrase appearing in a newspaper story in Connecticut in 1791, the printer’s devil was born.

April Fool’s

There are those who will tell you that the silliness associated with April 1 began in 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX. The Gregorian Calendar was introduced and the week leading up to New Year’s Day was moved from March 25 through April 1  to January 1.

It all sounds very plausible except for the fact that pranks played on April 1 are documented long before 1582.

Chaucer (who has been referenced previously in other idioms at this blog) made mention of April Fool’s Day in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales in 1392. 

When that the monthe in which the world bigan
That highte March, whan God first maked man,
Was complet, and passed were also
Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.

In 1508, Eloy d’Amerval, a French choirmaster and composer wrote a poem entitled, “Le livre de la deablerie.”  The poem includes the line, “maquereau infâme de maint homme et de mainte femme, poisson d’avril.”  The term “poisson d’avril” is the phrase shouted out when someone falls for an April Fool’s prank.

Flemish writer, Eduard De Dene, published a poem in 1539 about a nobleman who hatches a plan to send his servant back and forth on absurd errands on April 1st.  The last line of each stanza has the servant saying, “I am afraid that you are trying to make me run a fool’s errand.”

So while it’s next to impossible to say for certain when the custom of playing pranks on others on April 1 first began and who was responsible for it all, it’s a fact that April Fool’s Day  has been around and acknowledged for centuries.

Piping Hot

There are those who will say this phrase originates with the slang, known as Jack Speak, of the British Royal Navy known.   Supposedly, JackSpeak refers to the fact that if food is collected from the galley as soon as the appropriate ‘pipe’ sounds, then it is still hot when it’s served.

However, an early citation of the phrase is given in Philemon Holland’s 1601 translation of Pliny’s History of the world:  “Beans …  fried all whole as they be, and so cast piping hot into sharp vinegar.”

Even earlier than that the expression was first recorded in Chaucer’s 14th Century Canterbury Tales.  In the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer wrote:  “Wafers piping hot out of the gleed.”  The wafer is a kind of thin cake and gleed is the hot coals of a fire.