blue pencil (editing)

File:AW Faber blue pencils catalog 1940.png

Neither the exact date that blue pencils were introduced nor the details of how they became an editing standard are certain. Blue checking pencils were sold in the United States during the nineteenth century. Eberhard Faber offered a range of two-color pencils by 1873.{{cite web |title=Rot und Blau (4) |url=https://www.lexikaliker.de/2023/01/rot-und-blau-6/ |website=Lexikaliker |access-date=7 July 2024}}{{cite web |title=Rot und Blau (5) |url=https://www.lexikaliker.de/2023/01/rot-und-blau-7/ |website=Lexikaliker |access-date=7 July 2024}} Multinational manufacturer AW Faber sold wood and mechanical blue pencils in the late 1800s.{{cite web |title=Rot und Blau (3) |url=https://www.lexikaliker.de/2023/01/rot-und-blau-5/ |website=Lexikaliker |access-date=7 July 2024}} By 1888, "blue pencil" was being used as a synonym for "edit" or "censor".{{cite book |title=Green's Dictionary of Slang |isbn=9780199829941 |entry=blue-pencil |date=2011 |via=Oxford Reference |last=Green |first=Jonathon}} During World War II, bi-color pencils were used to mark troop positions on maps.{{cite book |last1=Petroski |first1=Henry |title=The pencil |date=1990 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-394-57422-6 |pages=296–299 |url=https://archive.org/details/pencilhistoryofd00petr_0}}

Blue pencils became associated with editorial control and with censorship. Under the Estado Novo in Portugal the "blue pencil" became a metaphor as editors would use blue pencils to censor out portions of works rather than banning the entire text.{{cite journal |last1=Castro |first1=Hugo |title=Protest Song and Recording in the Final Stages of the Estado Novo in Portugal (1960–1974) |journal=Music and the Making of Portugal and Spain |date=2023 |pages=135–152 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.6305470.11 |publisher=University of Illinois Press|jstor=10.5406/jj.6305470.11 |isbn=978-0-252-04532-5 }} In parts of Africa, the "blue pencil" became a metaphor for the censorship and banning of entire books.{{cite journal |last1=Read |first1=James S. |title=Censored |journal=Transition |date=1967 |issue=32 |pages=37–41 |doi=10.2307/2934623 |jstor=2934623 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2934623 |issn=0041-1191|url-access=subscription }}

File:Blue red school pencil, Hungarian Stationery Factory, Budapest 1963.jpg

In parts of Europe, blue pencils are used in elementary schools.{{cite web |last1=Brigitta |first1=Barnóczki |title=Postairón nélkül nincs iskolakezdés. Tanszerkörkép! |url=https://divany.hu/2018/iskolakezdes/2018/08/16/iskolakezdes-iskolaszer-gyerek-iskola/ |website=divany.hu |access-date=7 July 2024 |language=hu |date=16 August 2018}} In Hungary, children are taught the difference between uppercase and lowercase by writing the cases in different colors. In Germany, they are used to write separate syllables and numerical digits in alternating colors.{{cite web |title=Rot und Blau (1) |url=https://www.lexikaliker.de/2019/06/rot-und-blau-3/ |website=Lexikaliker |access-date=7 July 2024}} In Italian classrooms, they are used to mark separate types of errors.

The blue pencils for schoolchildren are sold as "copying pencils" or "post pencils".Postairón in Hungarian, poststift German. In early twentieth-century Germany, blue pencils were used to mark postal routes. Checking pencils have been called "post pencils" as early as 1909 in Europe.{{cite web |title=Rot und Blau |url=https://www.lexikaliker.de/2019/06/rot-und-blau-4/ |website=Lexikaliker |access-date=7 July 2024}}

{{main|Non-photo blue}}

File:Non-photo-blue-pencil.jpg pencils have had a different but overlapping role in comic book production.]]

In the production of comic books, blue pencils have a different but overlapping usage. American comic books are typically illustrated by multiple specialists. The penciller does the initial drawing, the inker brushes black ink over the pencil art, and the colorist adds colors to photocopies or digital scans of the inked art. Some pencillers have worked with non-photo blue pencils.{{cite web |last1=O |first1=Dick |title=Original Comic Art Collecting: 102 |url=https://comicbookinvest.com/2016/12/16/original-art-collecting-102/ |website=CBSI Comics |access-date=7 July 2024 |date=16 December 2016}}{{cite book |last1=Ellis |first1=Mark |last2=Ellis |first2=Melissa Martin |title=The Everything Guide to Writing Graphic Novels: From superheroes to manga—all you need to start creating your own graphic works |date=1 January 2008 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4405-2428-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PgrtDQAAQBAJ |language=en}} These cyan colored pencils leave marks that orthochromatic film for offset lithography does not capture, and digital scanners can filter that out.

Editors used the same cyan pencils to add notes to art before publishing, like editors in the broader publishing industry.{{cite web |last1=Grushkin |first1=Philip |last2=Shaw |first2=Paul |title=A small 'M' modern master |url=https://www.eyemagazine.com/review/article/a-small-m-modern-master |website=Eye Magazine |access-date=7 July 2024 |language=en |date=Summer 2014}} Original pencil art for comics was initially treated "as a means to an end rather than as an object of intrinsic value" but has come to be viewed as valuable art. The un-inked pencil drawings provide a more detailed representation of the original illustrators' work and have blue-pencil notes that sometimes go beyond technical issues to address ideas discussed in the creative process but never used in finished comic books.{{cite book |last1=Petersen |first1=Robert |title=Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives |date=2011 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-0-313-36330-6 |language=en}}

For similar reasons, some illustrators use red pencils that can be filtered out with xerography or digital scanners. Comic book artist Rob Guillory used checking pencils to illustrate Chew and Farmhand.{{cite interview |first=Rob |last=Guillory |interviewer-last=Dueben |interviewer-first=Alex |title="I Just Didn't Care About Doing Anything Else": An Interview with Rob Guillory |url=https://www.tcj.com/rob-guillory-interview/ |website=The Comics Journal |access-date=7 July 2024 |date=10 July 2018}}

{{cite news |last1=McAlpine |first1=Dayna |title=The Very Important Reason Why Actors Are Given Red Scripts |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/the-very-important-reason-why-actors-are-given-red-scripts_uk_65d7574fe4b0189a6a7d19f0 |access-date=7 July 2024 |work=HuffPost UK |date=22 February 2024 |language=en}}

{{main|Blue pencil doctrine}}

The blue pencil doctrine is a legal concept in common law countries where a court finds that portions of a contract are void or unenforceable, but other portions are enforceable. It derives its name from the court's ability to edit a written contract, similar to how an editor-in-chief would edit a manuscript.

The blue pencil rule allows the legally valid enforceable provisions of the contract to stand despite the nullification of the legally void unenforceable provisions. However, the revised version must represent the original meaning. The rule may not be invoked, for example, to delete the word "not" and thereby change a negative to a positive.{{Cite journal |last=Del Rossi |first=Lawrence J. |title=Part VII of "The Restricting Covenant" Series: Blue Pencils and Brokers |url=https://www.natlawreview.com/node/85667/printable/pdf |journal=National Law Review |volume=VII |issue=254}}

{{wiktionary|blue-pencil}}

Category:Copy editing

Category:Pencils

Category:Censorship