type foundries in the beginning of print

[Nick Shinn]

Nick, was the assembly line for boats a commercial business, or created by the government/military.

The Arsenale was run by the state, but produced boats for both the navy and merchants.
No doubt Venice’s ruling class profited from it.
A military-industrial complex that could be compared with those of today, such as Boeing.

[oldnick]

William,

The production of standardized coinage began in Lydia in the seventh century BCE, by none other than King Croesus—hence the expression, “As rich as Croesus” (him having invented money and all). The actual means of production (hammering a planchet between two dies) didn’t change for two thousand years, give or take. Screw presses emerged around the Renaissance, but the process of minting didn’t become fully mechanized until James Watts’ steam engine was applied to the process in 1801—about the same time that virtually every other means of production amenable to steam power exploded…

[Elbrecht]

Hi -

Elizabeth L. EISENSTEIN:
Die Druckerpresse. Kulturrevolutionen im frühen modernen Europa.
Springer, 1997.
ISBN 3211828486

ED: Just found the original US version in two volumes:

Elizabeth L. EISENSTEIN:
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change -
Communications & Cultural Transformations in pre-modern Europe.
Cambridge University Press, 1980.
ISBN 978-0521299558

HE

[William Berkson]

Thanks!

[Renaissance Man]

>the christian Hebrew typographer

Why is christian lc and Hebrew uc?

[John Hudson]

I presume because Hebrew is a proper noun in this context, referring to the Hebrew language, while christian is an adjective, referring to the typographer.

[Renaissance Man]

You have a whole lot of dictionaries against you on that one John.

The "he" is always lower-cased:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFWA1A9XFi8

[oldnick]

John,

So, “the british Empire” is proper form, “british” being an adjective in this case? I think not; methinks there’s an agnostic—or, perhaps, even an atheist in the house…

[Yaronimus-Maximus]

because my english writing is poor?

[John Hudson]

Capitalisation is a convention, one that hopefully captures useful information from language that assists understanding. English capitalisation used to be pretty random, but useful in the sense that it indicated words that the writer thought Very Important. These days, capitalisation is governed by style guides, some of them called grammars because that sounds more impressive, but no less conventional for that.

In this case, I think the meaning of the description of Le Bé is clarified by the lack of capitalisation. Consider, does the phrase 'Christian Hebrew typographer' refer, as intended, to a typographer of Hebrew text who happened to be a Christian, or to a typographer of something called Christian Hebrew. By not capitalising christian in this context, it is clear that the word is an adjective referring to 'Hebrew typographer', and not part of a proper noun.

Generally, I like to restrict use of capitalisation to proper nouns, which is why I regularly offend people by writing of the Catholic churches and the protestant churches. Why? Because Catholic is part of the proper name of the institutions in question -- the Roman Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, etc. --, whereas with >34,000 independent protestant sects operating under a great diversity of names almost none of which actually include the word Protestant, it seems obvious to me that there is no such thing as Protestant as a proper noun except in very rare cases; protestant is an adjective, as is christian in the context of the comment about Le Bé, and catholic when referring to one of the four marks of the Church (the latter a proper noun in this case, to distinguish it from the church around the corner).

Some people capitalise adjectives that they think are Important. But that's pretty Random.

[quadibloc]

In English, unlike French, words like "Christian", "Fahrenheit", "Hamiltonian", or "Newtonian" which contain a proper name, are always capitalized, no matter what part of speech they are.

[oldnick]

Thank you, John: quite Enlightening…except that, technically speaking, “Christian” is an adjective referring to a specific person’s honorific, which is to say Iesu Christe. It is unlikely that any self-respecting copy editor would let “Henry the eighth” fly…

[William Berkson]

Yaronimus indicated, he is not familiar with the intricacies of English capitalization. There's nothing more to it...

[eliason]

In English, unlike French, words like "Christian", "Fahrenheit", "Hamiltonian", or "Newtonian" which contain a proper name, are always capitalized, no matter what part of speech they are.

ohm really? :-)

[Nick Shinn]

Craig, tell me if it hertz to be such a smart alec.

[eliason]

I am watt I am.

[John Hudson]

John (Q), you're quite right that the convention in most English usage is to preserve the capitalisation in words derived from proper names, with the caveat illustrated by Craig and Nick S that this only persists so long as the words remain commonly associated with the person. The personal association of many words diminishes over time, especially if the original name was foreign and unfamiliar to English speakers. It is akin to what can happen to trademark names if they become common parlance: how Kleenex becomes kleenex.

T'other Nick pondered whether the failure to capitalise christian was some sort of atheistical gesture. I pointed out that, whatever the reason, in the context of the particular construction the lack of capitalisation avoided the ambiguity so often potential in English when a capitalised adjective is joined with a proper noun.

[oldnick]

Ohm = Ω
Hertz = Hz
James Watt loses out.
british Empire?

[gargoyle]

It is akin to what can happen to trademark names if they become common parlance: how Kleenex becomes kleenex.

That's an interesting subject; learn more about trademark dilution by googling it.