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Subject:What's a widow? -Reply From:Sarah Lee Bihlmayer <sarahlee -at- CONTENTMANAGE -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 13 Sep 1996 17:55:31 -0700
Bill Sullivan says:
>I don't know if anyone went to the Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary
>(2nd ed.) but it throws gasoline on the fire with the following:
>Orphan. The first line of a paragraph printed alone at the bottom of
>a page or column of text, or the last line of a paragraph printed
>alone at the top of a page or column.
>Widow. A single word, a portion of a word, or a few short words left
>on a line by themselves at the end of a paragraph or column of type on
>a page.
I spent 14 years working in the traditional typesetting and electronic
prepress industries before becoming a tech writer, and this agrees with the
way I've always heard these terms used by typesetters and
printers--including my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father
(that's right, there were 4 generations of us and we all used the same
nomenclature!).
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