Obsolete writing technique alert
By William M. Hartnett on Sep 26, 2007 in featured, newspapers
> Magna Carta Is Going on the Auction Block (New York Times)
Very interesting story about the only copy of the Magna Carta in the United States heading for auction, where it’s expected to fetch $20 million to $30 million. But check out this opening:
The 2,500 words fill a page that is a couple of inches shorter than this one, but almost as wide. The faded letters in Latin are unreadable in places. Something that looks like a scraggly, russet-colored tail hangs from the bottom.
Probably about time we dropped references to the actual page on which our words are printed, what with the Interweb and all. Unless the writer very specifically meant that the Magna Carta is a couple inches shorter but almost as wide as my 17-inch Dell LCD display, which would be a truly remarkable bit of personalization on the part of The New York Times.
