Number of words: 225

The proofreading room was home to its own soundscape. One of the main responsibilities of a proofreader was to ensure that the type version of a story matched the original copy written and edited by the news team. Proofreaders checked grammar, spelling, and facts and ensured that the spacing and hyphenation were correct. A proofreader would check the original manuscript against a proof of the type produced by the Linotype operators. Rather than compare one against the other on their own, proofers often had an assistant read out the original copy while they inspected the type version. This relationship gave rise to a unique language of sounds and actions.

“For any statistical table [like stocks] we used to have symbols which involved hands and feet,” he told me. “To indicate a period (the assistants) would hit their foot on the ground. For the end of a regular paragraph of type you would just touch your foot on the ground. And at the end of a sentence you would lower your voice.”

The assistant would also slap his or her hand on the table to indicate if the first letter of a word was capitalized. “Hands and feet were going just as much as mouths.” Schlesinger said. “It was part of the lore of printing.”

Excerpted from page 16 of ‘Regret the Error’ by Craig Silverman