Part of an occasional series on newspaper terms.

Copy paper. Copy paper. What does it mean?

In the distant past, before computers and their peripheral printers, our pressman would cut up some heaps of newsprint left on the end of the roll.

Said pressman would come to the front office with a stack of neatly trimmed 8½x11-inch newsprint, and say “Here’s some copy paper.”

First hint: it’s scrap paper.

Second hint: it’s for copy.

Now, copy is one of those newspaper terms you won’t hear on the street. It is not the use that means “duplicate” or the acknowledgment sometimes uttered between radio operators.

Copy, indeed, is the first and sometimes final draft of a news article or ad. Back when we had Royal standard manual typewriters on our desks, we rolled in a sheet of copy paper, typed a slugline in the upper left to let the editor know the subject of the article, and commenced writing the story.

Today we just print on the back...