oddments

IF it is a specialised jargon dictionary
AND it was published in 1888 
AND it concerns the topic of typography
THEN you had better believe that it is part of raynor ganan’s vast library

this installment of f-words comes from the printers’ vocabulary: a collection of some 2500 technical terms, phrases, abbreviations and other expressions mostly relating to letterpress printing many of which have been in use since the time of caxton (in the realm of type, william caxton is a christlike figure that everyone sets their dates around, thus anything that happened in the printing world before the time of caxton is annotated b.c.).

• Feint ruling—Very light and thin lines used in account ruling.
• Fine presswork—A term applied to the better class of handwork in printing.
• Fire eater—An old term for a rapid setter of type.
• Fly—An odd lad for errands and other jobs—also called printer’s devils.
• Flying a frisket—The process of turning up or down the tympan when printing at a hand-press.
• Foolscap—A size of printing paper, 17 × 13½ inches; writing paper, 16¾ × 13½ inches.
• Forty-eightmo—A sheet of paper folded into forty-eight leaves—written shortly, 48mo.
• Foxed—Paper or books stained or mouldy are said to be “foxed.”
• Fret—When rollers crack or peel they are said to “fret.”
• Frontispiece—The illustration facing the title-page of a work.
• Fugitive’ colours—A class of coloured inks which are not permanent in tone, and change or fade on exposure.
• Full bound—A term used to define a book wholly bound in leather (cf. quarter bound and half bound).