At the bottom of each entry in this site’s blog, I use </30> to designated the end of the it.
In my own way, it’s a nod to the tradition of ending newspaper stories (and occasionally broadcast and magazine pieces) with - 30 -.While no one’s sure why 30 was used as an end sign, there is no shortage of ideas. —Craig Saila —Why end with 30? (Living Can Kill You)
Somebody e-mailed me this question. In the back of my mind, I thought, “An obsolete typesetting symbol?” but I didn’t know.
Similar:
How America fell in love with crazy amounts of air conditioning
By the 1950s, as air conditioners became...
Business
How Facebook and Twitter control what you see about Ferguson
On Twitter, I see tear-gassed civilians,...
Culture
Fun and Games with Samuel Beckett and Pict.
Beckett's masterpiece Waiting For Godot ...
Culture
The overlooked masterpieces of 1922
In literature the response to the challe...
Books
I am not really sure why I have kept it up this long. I have no immediate or foreseeable p...
Culture
Italian journalist to be beatified for helping Jews escape persecution
Journalist who helped saved Jews from Ho...
Current_Events
Thanks for the reference, Julie.
In one of my corporate communications classes I learned that they used the thirty because they transmitted articles via telegraph, and they would tap XXX to signify the end, and somehow someone decided to use a thirty instead because that’s what XXX equals in Roman Numerals? Anyway, that’s a very strange excuse for it and it doesn’t explain the use of “###,” unless a pound sign is just a fancy “X.”
Anyway, it’s just another version of the 30-telegraph story to add to the “Why end with 30” debate.
Blame this explanation on _Mass Media Writing An Introduction_ by Gail Baker-Woods, et al.