First page of the first tractate of the Talmud (Daf Beis of Maseches Brachos)

A catchword is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

placed at the foot of a handwritten or

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The e ...

page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the

bookbinder Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, ...

or printer make sure that the leaves were bound in the right order or that the pages were set up in the press in the right order. Catchwords appear in some medieval

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

s, and appear again in printed books late in the fifteenth century. The practice became widespread in the mid sixteenth century, and prevailed until the arrival of industrial printing techniques late in the eighteenth century. Theodore Low Devinne's 1901 guide on ''Correct Composition'' had this to say:

For more than three centuries printers of books appended at the foot of every page the first word or syllable of the next page. This catchword was supposed to be needed by the reader to make clear the connection between the two pages; but the catchword is now out of use, and it is not missed.

Notes

References

* De Hamel, Christopher. ''Scribes and Illuminators.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. 41. * Gaskell, Philip. ''A New Introduction to Bibliography.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. 52–53. * McKerrow, Ronald B. ''An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. 82. * Roberts, Matt T., and Don Etherington,
Bookbinding and the Conservation of books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology
' {{Book structure Printing terminology Bookbinding Book terminology

See also

Notes

References