Correction of the Week

From the New York Times, July 30, 2007:

An article on Thursday about the arraignment of three men in the shooting of two New York police officers, one of whom died, misstated the schedule set by a judge for a trial in the case. The trial is expected to begin by February, not by “Feb. 30.” The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol “— 30 —” typed at the bottom of the reporter’s article and combined it with the last word, “February.” It is actually a notation that journalists have used through the years to denote the end of an article. Although many no longer use it or even know what it means, some journalists continue to debate its origin. A popular theory is that it was a sign-off code developed by telegraph operators. Another tale is that reporters began signing their articles with “30” to demand a living wage of $30 per week. Most dictionaries still include the symbol in the definition of thirty, noting that it means “conclusion” or “end of a news story.”

I imagine we'll see a lot more of this sort of thing as newspaper staffs continue to be decimated in the interest of the bottom line.

(Hat tip to Bonnie Britt.) 

Update: Read more about the history of "30" in journalism from linguist Mark Liberman at Language Log. And updated further: tracking "30" back to Morse Code.

Comments

[John Cowan]

The story I heard (but I don't vouch for it), was that the original form of "- 30 -" was "- XXX - ", and that this was later read, or misread, as a Roman numeral. It indicates, when a story is written in takes, that the story is complete: this is the last take, no more to come.