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Slug

Printing
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A line of cast metal type or a strip used for spacing. The meaning depends on the printing method.

Detailed Definition
In hot-metal composition, a slug is a solid line of type cast as one piece, especially by a Linotype machine. In hand composition and later mechanical systems, the word can also refer to a strip of metal used to create blank space between lines or sections. Poetry printers may use slugs to control vertical intervals between titles, stanzas, and notes. The term reflects the physical materiality of type, when spacing was built from actual pieces of metal rather than software settings.
Example
Example in poetry:
In traditional printing, a slug is a metal or wooden strip used to create blank space between lines or sections of type; A letterpress printer might insert a slug between a poem’s title and first line to give the opening more breathing room; A poet setting movable type can use slugs to separate stanzas without adding printed marks to the page; In a print shop, a slug can also refer to a line of type or identifying information placed outside the final trimmed page
Additional Notes
In letterpress, a slug may be a cast line of type or a blank metal strip used to create space. The intended meaning depends on whether the discussion concerns composition or spacing.
Also Known As
Type Slug Line Slug
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