10 Publishing Words You Don’t Know (Webisode 3) Stigmeology and Wayzgoose
Continuing from: Webisode 2
9 — Stigmeology
According to Jef Raskin, “If books were sold as software, they would have the following legalese printed up front:
“The content of this book is distributed on an ‘as is’ basis, without warranty as to accuracy of content, quality of writing, punctuation, usefulness of the ideas presented, merchantability, correctness or readability of formulae, charts, and figures, or correspondence of (a) the table of contents with the actual contents, (2) page references in the index (if any) with the actual page numbering (if present), and (iii) any illustration with its adjacent caption.”
You get the picture, I’m sure. It’s easy to understand this sarcastic cri de coeur. Book publishers are 100 times more meticulous than software publishers — and then some.
They abide by standards of quality that would put Microsoft and Adobe out of business in a week. This is particularly so in editing, with spelling and punctuation. There are esteemed style books (the Chicago Manual of Style is the one that dominates in the US) that lay down the rules for all to peruse — and the rules are followed.
Stigmeology is an element of the skill of the publisher and editor. It is the study of punctuation. A stigmeologist knows when to use a colon and when to use a dash and will probably know the esoteric names for all the punctuation marks like, for example, the eroteme (for the question mark?), the interrobang (for the question mark followed by an exclamation mark?!) and the pointer (for the colon followed by the dash).
The last of these, by the way, :- , has no useful function according to stigmeologists, except of course for its use in emoticons :-).
Printers in the UK refer to what publishers call “the pointer” as “the dogs bollocks” because it looks like a pair of dogs testicles as seen from below :- bollocks being UK slang for testicles. This morsel of esoteric slang has led to some etymological confusion, because “the dog’s bollocks” is also widely used UK slang to indicate something outstandingly good.
However, the use of the term in that context has a completely different derivation. It dates back about 40 years to when a British toy company sold a construction toy for boys called Meccano. The toy came as a set of miniature metal beams, struts, sheets, nuts and bolts, which could be bolted together to make buildings or cranes or — well anything your imagination could envisage. The toy was very popular and it came in boxes of two sizes:
- The Standard box — known as Box Standard
- The Deluxe Box — known as Box Deluxe
Both of these box sizes were turned into slang terms by the Brits.
- Box Standard became “bog standard”, meaning the ordinary model as in: this is your bog standard ball point pen.
- Box Deluxe was transformed into “dog’s bollocks”, meaning the absolute best as in; this Montblanc pen is the dog’s bollocks .
10 — Wayzgoose
We easily forget that electricity has only been available to us for a little over a century. The need for light in a printing shop is obvious and as the summer days came to a close there was a need in English printing shops to use candles to provide light for the work. By tradition, at that time, the printer would lay on an annual dinner for his staff, known as the wayzgoose.
By tradition this happened on 24th August, which is also St Bartholomew’s Day. The etymology of wayzgoose is the subject of dispute. It may be from “wasegoose,” which would imply harvest goose as (from vase, which is Middle English and means sheaf) or it may be a corruption of waes goose, in deference to the grand goose-feast annually held at Waes, in Brabant on November 11th.
After electricity came into common use, the wayzgoose ceased to be held on St Bartholomew’s Day. It was moved to July.
St Bartholomew, coincidentally, is the patron saint of bookbinders. Almost nothing is known about him other than that he was one of the 12 disciples that never got mentioned much in the New Testament, and that he traveled around evangelizing after Christ’s death, until he was condemned by the governor of Albanopolis in Armenia to be crucified and then flayed.
For that reason he is normally portrayed holding a tanner’s knife. It’s easy therefore to understand why he is the patron saint of butchers, cobblers and leather workers, and because books were often bound in leather, bookbinders.
However, why is he the patron saint of cheese makers?
If you’re interested in other obscure words you don’t know, click here.
Robin Bloor is the author of Words You Don’t Know. For the record, he is also the author of The “Common Sense” of Crypto Currency, runs the website TheDataRightsofMan.com, is a founder of TurtleIslandCoin.io and a member of the advisory board for Permission.io.
