an error is impossible,[1] and that early books do not deserve the reputation they have had for superior accuracy. Prosper Marchand, writing in 1738, says that reader is deceived who thinks that old books are more correct than new books; on the contrary, they are much more inaccurate.
Errors of the press often begin with errors of reporters who have misunderstood spoken words. The rule of follow copy compels the compositor to repeat the exact words written by the reporter, and the following blunders are the result of obedience to this rule. A speaker made this statement:
In these days clergymen are expected to have the
wisdom and learning of Jeremy Taylor.
But the reporter wrote, and the compositor repeated:
. . . the wisdom and learning of a journeyman tailor.
Another speaker quoted these lines:
O come, thou goddess fair and free?
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne.
They were printed as written:
O come, thou goddess fair and. free,
In heaven she crept and froze her knee.
Another orator quoted this line from Tennyson's Locksley Hall:
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
