"Facts" about printing and book-design

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has innumerable likable qualities, but certainly one of her finest traits is her penchant for finding laughably misinformed information on the interweb and then gently, throughly and lovingly correcting it in a way that is funny enough to provoke milk-in-your-sinuses-and-on-your-keyboard laughter. In today's installment, she takes apart a webpage that "describes" how printing and book-design work.

They call themselves Back Yard Publisher, but I prefer the page's title tag: Publishing Your Manuescript. Their motto is good, too: Remember! There's A Publisher in You're Own Back Yard.

Most of their page is given over to explaining hitherto-unknown Alternate Facts about book design, typography, and printing. For instance:

In gravure printing the letters are etched into a plate (usually Copper), then ink is forced into the letters, scraped from the area around the letters and paper is forced onto the ink at extremely high pressure. The ink is then transferred to the paper. This is what the song "In Your Easter Bonnet" is all about.

You know-- "In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, / You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade ..." Bet you never suspected.

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