hot type
noun; printing, historical

- Typesetting in which molten metal is cast into printable characters or complete lines.

- Metal type freshly produced by a mechanical casting machine.

- A collective term for systems such as Linotype, Monotype, Intertype and Ludlow.

Typography Terms Glossary, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oxford Reference

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PHRASE ORIGIN

Printers called the process hot type because its letters were cast from molten type metal—usually an alloy containing lead, antimony and tin. Unlike traditional hand composition, which reused individual pieces of previously cast type, machines could cast fresh characters or entire lines as they were needed.

Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype machine entered commercial newspaper production in 1886. Its name compressed line of type: the machine assembled letter moulds and cast a complete line as one solid metal “slug”.

The precise first use of hot type hasn’t been securely established. The expression became especially useful once cold type appeared in the twentieth century. Phototypesetting produced text photographically, without molten metal, making the temperature contrast both literal and memorable.

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THE NONSENSE THAT MADE SENSE

A Linotype keyboard looked nothing like the familiar QWERTY arrangement. Its 90 keys were grouped according to their function, and commonly used letters were positioned for speed. The first two vertical columns began: E T A O I N
  S H R D L U

That arrangement produced one of printing’s strangest accidental expressions: etaoin shrdlu.

Correcting a Linotype error wasn’t as simple as pressing Backspace. Once an operator had selected the wrong letter matrix, it was often quicker to finish the faulty line, cast it and discard the resulting metal slug. To complete the line rapidly, operators ran a finger down those first two columns. The resulting gibberish was easy for a proofreader to spot—at least in theory. Occasionally it escaped notice and appeared in print, becoming an occupational joke among newspaper workers.

The phrase outlived the machines. Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu, a documentary released in 1980, recorded The New York Times changing from hot-metal composition to computerised production. Computer scientist Terry Winograd had already borrowed SHRDLU for an influential language-understanding program developed around 1970.

Thus an error signal created by mechanical necessity became a small cultural fossil.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

hot lead, hot metal, hot-metal composition, HOT TYPE, machine composition, mechanical typesetting

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Many printers started their newspaper careers setting HOT TYPE and ended them working at a computer terminal.”

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