Lead out
The Bleilaus (plural lead lice ) is a professional joke about a non-existent beings, the customs of the pressure being occurred. Specialists in the printing industry who had learned the profession of typesetter also jokingly referred to themselves as lead lice .
The custom was in typesetting exercised in those with hot metal was worked. After the profession of digital and print media designer replaced training as a typesetter, the custom died out.
It was used to play tricks on newcomers and trainees , as is done in other trades. Budding typesetters and trainees in related professions such as printers fell victim to the practical jokes of older colleagues with professional experience. It usually took place in the mettage .
For this purpose , water was poured out on a typesetting boat , on which the typesetter usually placed either the sentence from the angle hook or cast lines from a typesetting machine . Older and younger colleagues then waited together for lead lice to appear there. After a few moments, they were supposedly visible to everyone except the newbie. He was told to look very closely and his face came closer and closer to the ship or the angle hook. An older colleague used this to push the jetties on the jib or the angle hooks together, whereupon the water splashed into the face of the victim of the prank.
Occasionally typesetters also presented lead lice as proof of sympathy to those who were not familiar with the profession, such as editorial volunteers in newspaper publishers, in order to put the sense of humor of the budding journalists to the test.
Bleilaus is still mentioned as an anecdote in the printing encyclopedias, namely as an inventory of "practically every typesetting that still has lead type". It is difficult to perceive it, it should only " be observable at close range if you look closely at the lead letters ".
Taxon lice
Another species from the fictitious lice taxon is the stone louse .
Web links and literature
- Klaus Pokatzky: "The eradication of lead lice" . In: Die Zeit of March 29, 1985
- Prussian lead type magazine: Bleilaus
- Report by the journalist Alfred Keil on the observation of Bleilaus in 1966, first published in the column “Des Pudels Kern” in the Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung
- Dieter Seppelt: Bleilaus never dies out . BoD , Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-7831-4 .
- Harro Neuhardt and Klaus Wilinski: Die Bleilaus - The black Peter of the art of printing . Play with old expressions from the graphic trade with caricatures and descriptions. Gutenberg Museum, Mainz.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erich Grisar: April, April - all kinds of professional jokes . Published on March 25, 1950 (PDF file; 720 kB)
- ↑ Gunter Mehner: Whether printer or typesetter: everyone got to know lead lice
- ↑ Gutenberg's Legacy on Geocaching.com
- ↑ Lead lice in the printing dictionary of Erdnuß Druck GmbH
- ↑ Lead lice in the glossary of A. Ollig GmbH & Co. KG