"Jose" wrote in message
...
I don't know what they used to fill the space between the end of the type
and the end of the line, but I have no particular reason to think the guy
was making it up when he told me--while he was setting the type--or why
he would spread such an "urban legend" if the press he was demonstrating
contradicted it.

I thought he actually demonstrated it to you, rather than just told you.

No, he didn't break the production equipment anymore than a professional
pilot damages his airplane to demonstrate that it can happen.

Are you REALLY this interested in it? If so, then I'll downshift:

The typesetter was setting up a print job on a vintage printing press. As
he was doing it and describing the process, he explained that the quotes go
on the outside of the period so the period doesn't lean outward and
potentially snap off during the printing process. That's all I know about
it. If you think he was underqualified to explain such a thing or was
somehow being dishonest, or you think I just pulled all of this out of my
ass for the sheer hell of it, then show me what you have to the contrary.

This incident happened at the OSU Printing Press on the southwest corner of
15th and Washington in Corvallis, OR in the spring of 1991 The building
burned down in the summer of 1991 so unfortunately the geological
coordinates won't do any good if you wanted to try to Google Earth down the
building's vent pipe or something. I toured the facility and spoke with
the press operator as part of a senior-level journalism studies class.

Any other questions?

-c