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Minnesota Newspaper Museum in the 4-H Building at the State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
My first job in media was as an apprentice letterpress printer in a commercial job shop. Amongst my colleagues today I'm alone in knowing that the leading of a line (the space between lines) is called that because lead type was separated by strips of lead. Neil Benson is a sixty-something too. He remembers that an "older, stranger language – one that was unique to the analogue newspaper and with its roots in the hot metal era - has been rendered virtually obsolete by changes in technology, and is now all but lost. I find that sad."
"Why shed a tear over old terminology? Change happens, the world moves on. Well, because this peculiar language encapsulated 100 years or more of our industry. For generations of journalists, commercial staff, typesetters, compositors and press crews, this was our lingua franca."
To supplement his memory he posted on the Horny Handed Subs of Toil Facebook page, a kind of "online care home for sub-editors" of our vintage, to ask for help.
Article: The Lost Language of Newspapers