Newspapers as "hard copy"

The newspaper lexicon is changing as print struggles to survive — in some form or other.

The Portland Tribune is now calling itself a "daily newspaper” even though the daily edition is entirely on-line.

Paper has nothing to do with The Tribune as a "daily newspaper.” And if more editorial staffers are cut, neither will news.

What was once called its newspaper, printed on real paper, is now called “hard copy” and appears only on Thursdays. Free in green distribution boxes, such a publication was referred to as a "free-distribution" weekly newspaper.

“Hard copy,” on the other hand, was what came out of reporters' typewriters when they finished writing. The reporters gave it to a “copy boy” who would take it to the "copy desk," and eventually a “copy editor.” It never got to the street as “copy.”

With the arrival of the computer, "hard copy" was a print-out of what was on the screen. Often mistakes that eluded writers and editors on the screen, jumped out at them on hard copy. They still do.

Now, courtesy of the Tribune, we all can read “hard copy,” presumably without mistakes. Tribune “hard copy” is available at in those ubiquitous “Hard Copy” boxes.

But I doubt that the boxes will be around much longer. I give them and "hard copy" five years — tops.