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Alternative Layout System

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396 points smartmic | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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tangus ◴[] No.44399426[source]
Related to "Last is first", old Spanish books sometimes put at the end of the page the first syllable of the next page. (It was quite disconcerting when I first saw it.)
replies(2): >>44400213 #>>44401660 #
1. duskwuff ◴[] No.44400213[source]
That's called a "catchword", and it's common in many older texts (not just in Spanish). It serves two purposes - it makes it easier for a person reading the book aloud to read smoothly while turning a page, and it makes it easier for bookbinders to spot pages which are missing or out of order. (Page numbers were, believe it or not, a later development.)