h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Whilst at my mother's these past couple of days, I took advantage of the Royal Mail and posted all my UK cards. However, first I ran off a few "round robins" on my mother's computer. I searched everywhere but couldn't find any A4. Only foolscap.

Do you realise that modern printers don't even recognise foolscap - they don't do the length (somewhere around 35 cm)

So I printed two per sheet - putting the paper in first this way round, then that. I cut them off how they came, making some very odd-shaped letters.

Never mind. At least that's half my Christmas cards done. And many thanks to those who have sent me one so far!

Note to self: Christmas present for Mum - a packet of printing paper, A4 size.

This reminds me of a play I saw some time ago. Done by the University here, it was in English. Something about a Fish - Aah, found it. It was called "When the Rain stops falling" by Andrew Bovell.

The first scene took place in 1959 in America. Three things niggled me so much, I found it hard to follow. An important prop was a letter or some document. They used a piece of A4 paper. That bothered me most. The girl in the scene was wearing a late fifties style skirt with full petticoats. When she sat down she didn't brush her skirt smooth. Unthinkable!

And thirdly, they kept banging on about Bangla Desh. Hello!?!? Bangla Desh didn't exist until about 1970-71. Up until then it was East Pakistan. Doesn't everyone remember that?

I could also add that I learned on foolscap at secretarial college, but we also learned the size of A4 (how many lines of typing, how many letters per line, etc)

Ha! The internet doesn't lose ENNY-THING. http://www.h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/F56786?thread=8285504&skip=0&show=20 That is the journal I wrote about the play.

I still have some unused foolscap in my attic. Think I might start a scrapbook or something and sew the sheets together if I can bend my right hand round anything smaller than a basting needle

I remember foolscap. They still use it in the States don't they? I'm prettu sure that they've never heard of A4.

"Foolscap is lined, legal-size paper (a paper size found only in North America)." [Wikipedia]

It is generally yellow, which, together with the lines, makes it a strange paper to print Christmas cards on.

Lawyers in the U.S. apparently use pads of this paper to take notes on, though I am not sure why they use this particular size. There is similar lined paper [usually white] of the standard 8 1/2 by 11 inch size, which would do Just as well, and fit nicely in standard-sized binders. File cabinets in the U.S. come in two sizes by width: regular and legal. The legal size accommodates folders of legal-sized paper.

The legal profession puts a lot of emphasis on tradition and precedent. This makes them a lagging force. Courier font was popular for legal publications two or three decades ago, but has been superseded by other fonts. Nevertheless, the legal community in Massachusetts continues to require Courier in official printed documents.

When I was in school, some of my teachers would talk about foolscap paper when they actually meant A4. I don't think I've ever seen actual foolscap.

TRiG.

My primary school (1960s) teachers used to say foolscap, but I think they must have meant A4 because Britain adopted that standard in 1959.

I'm pretty sure at least some Americans have heard of it (A4), although their standard paper size (of similar dimensions) is letter - 8½" x 11". That kinda threw me when I first unpacked all the stuff I shipped across the pond - I still had some British envelopes which were almost, but entirely quite, the wrong size for the paper here.

Leave it to the Americans to have the wrong size paper and envelopes

Did you know that the A series of paper sizes is designed so that:

- all sizes are the same shape
- each successive A number is got by folding the previous one in half so that for example A5 is A4 folded in half
- A0 has an area of 1 square metre

I never knew why it was called foolscap and had to look it up - the 15th-century jester's head watermark.

Des it still have this? (I don't have any to hand)

I had foolscap paper for quite a while at school and some very old lever-arch files that my dad gave me which are bigger than A4 and consequently don't fit on my BillybookshelvesfromIKEA. Which is a pest (they are my A-level work files. Well one. Since for 2 subjects I just twiddled my thumbs...)

I love the Legal pads, I don't know why. Probably because when at school I read a lot of trashy romance novels (Danielle Steele I'm looking at you) and they invariably wore Gucci loafers and wrote things in an elegant script with their fountain pen on legal pads.

I don't think foolscap always has the watermark in it. And it definitely isn't always lined, because we were typing on it.

Legal is not exactly foolscap size: "The Legal paper size is 0.5" (13mm) wider than the Foolscap paper size and 1.0" (25mm) longer. The difference in overall area is 0.012 sq yd (approx 0.010 sq m) with Legal paper being bigger.

Curious site, giving paper area in square yards.

I never came across Legal paper until I read about it in a very curious book, 'A Confederacy of Dunces' set in New Orleans.

Foolscap (with lines) is what I did all my exams on, in secondary school and university. The papers in school were printed on a Gestetner machine, and took some deciphering. In college they were printed in the College Printing House, which it was a tradition for certain students in some subjects (notably maths) to break into, the night before their final exams.

The Printing house no longer houses a press, and has been converted into a conference venue and bijou concert room

http://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTjkA6j3KMM9xJP5BrvclCgqOYgIRDWsD5_kAydf0WXbQPPZgkR

On the subject of our most familiar childhood ways and words being forgotten, way back in the eighties my daughter took part in a play (All That Fall) which contained the word 'halfpenny' and the actor pronounced it 'half penny'. They had never heard anyone saying it.

Hay-pny.

Bad link, try this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Dublin_Trinity_College_Printing_House_01.JPG

It's common enough to find foolscap notebooks. I have a couple of them in the house.

I remember (God alone knows *why* I remember it, but I do) someone years ago buying foolscap in a shop in 'Home & Away', so maybe it's more familiar down under.

Amazing what reminiscences a single word has conjured up.

Oh - and I've worked with paper engineers, they always work in square yards. Or square metres. The weight of paper designating the quality (e.g. 80g) means 80 g per square metre.