Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1920. Proofreader wages daily battle over masthead

Every night, when Tom Fleming read the proofs of the front page for the next morning's Journal, he circled the same word at the top of the page for correction: "Daily."

Fleming, who had studied Greek and Latin under the Christian brothers in his native Ireland, was bothered by the word "daily" in the name of the newspaper: The Providence Daily Journal.

The paper had been called The Daily Journal, in one variation or another, since the daily paper was first issued in 1829. "Daily" was needed to distinguish The Daily Journal from its sister publication, also called The Journal, that had come out twice a week since 1820, nine years before the daily began. It also was a bit of advertising; until 1829, Providence had no daily paper, so stressing the fact did not hurt.

But, by the time Fleming had become a proofreader around World War I, the twice weekly paper had faded into history. It seemed to him redundant to call a newspaper The Daily Journal.

The word "journal" comes from Latin "diurnalis," which in turn derives from the Latin word meaning "day." A "journal," then, was something that recurred daily, Fleming argued. That would make a "daily journal" a rather redundant daily newspaper that comes out daily.

So, every night, "Daily" got a red circle.

And every night, Fleming's pet peeve went ignored.

Until a mysterious night in February 1920.

On Monday, Feb. 9, 1920, subscribers received The Providence Daily Journal.

On Feb. 10, they got The Providence Journal, the same name the paper uses in 2004.

The front page also underwent a minor redesign: The weather forecast and the number of sections in that day's paper were now listed in boxes at the top corners of the paper. Until that day, they had been crammed into a line of type below the name of the paper, along with the date, the price, the volume number and other information.

Exactly how the change happened remains the stuff of legend.

One such legend has it that Fleming had finally worn down the editors, who ordered the change.

Journal files

The Providence Daily Journal became The Providence Journal on Feb. 10, 1920. Although the change is still a mystery, some think it was the work of a proofreader who considered "daily" redundant with "journal."

But that seems unlikely. Editors tend to be orderly sorts who would not change the name of the paper in the middle of the week and they tend to explain such momentous changes to readers, which never happened when "Daily" was dropped.

A competing legend attributes the change to one of the printers responsible for assembling the type for each day's paper.

This printer of legend sounds suspiciously like Fleming: an expert in Latin also offended by the redundancy of "daily journal."

The story goes that he had been put in charge of assembling the front page and had simply dropped "Daily" on his own. The next day, the powers that be either did not notice or did not care and the change stuck.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between, and Fleming had enlisted a co-conspirator.