I've seen this in journalism, and looked it up on Wiki . . . interesting -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30- *–30–* has been traditionally used by journalists to indicate the end of a story. There are many theories about how the usage came into being,[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-#cite_note-0>e.g. It was telegraphic shorthand to signify the end of a story in the Civil War era.[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-#cite_note-1> Other theories include that the "-30-" originated when stories were written in longhand<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhand>; X marked the end of a sentence, XX the end of a paragraph, and XXX meant the end of a story. The Roman numerals XXX translate to 30.
-30- and # or ### (sometimes seen as # # #) are still used today when writing press releases. They used to be typed double spaced and would often be multiple pages so this would indicate there were no additional pages to the press release. -----Original Message----- From: iadecatu-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:iadecatu-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Kathleen Deao Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 11:35 AM To: iadecatu@rootsweb.com Subject: [IADECATU] -30- I've seen this in journalism, and looked it up on Wiki . . . interesting -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30- *-30-* has been traditionally used by journalists to indicate the end of a story. There are many theories about how the usage came into being,[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-#cite_note-0>e.g. It was telegraphic shorthand to signify the end of a story in the Civil War era.[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-#cite_note-1> Other theories include that the "-30-" originated when stories were written in longhand<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhand>; X marked the end of a sentence, XX the end of a paragraph, and XXX meant the end of a story. The Roman numerals XXX translate to 30. www.iagenweb.org/decatur ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IADECATU-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message