To/in press/print

[Laurence Horn]

On Jan 14, 2013, at 11:47 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> Doesn't a book "go to press" *before* it "is in print"?  And I find
> it a bit hard to say a book "is in press"

As far as I know, this is the standard term for a book at the point when it's in the publisher's hands (after the galleys have been submitted in final form) and it hasn't yet appeared in print.  It is so cited in bibliographies, e.g.

Hall, Joan Houston et al., eds.  In press.  Dictionary of American Regional English, Vol. VI. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Once it's in print, then of course it's cited by year of appearance.  As I mentioned, this is an aspectual classification: "in press" is closer to appearance than "forthcoming" or "to appear".

LH

> or "goes to
> print".  Perhaps "is in the press" (meaning not yet published, but my
> preference is "at the press".  And "goes to print" I think I would
> only use in contrast to going somewhere else, such as "to electrons".
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/13/2013 11:07 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:28 PM, [not] Laurence Horn
>> <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> >> I always thought newspapers went to press, but books went to print. Am
>> >> I mistaken?
>>
>> Damfino. I've always made a distinction between going "to press," and
>> being "in print" as relevant to any publication, without ever
>> considering "going to print" at all. But that doesn't make me right.
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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