One term missing in our proofreading course glossary…

Our proofreading course lesson on terminology excludes one item that older students may recognise: the word ‘spike’.

These days, the term tends to be used when you’re spiking someone’s drink!

But some of us oldies will recall them days when it referred to an essential item in every proofreader’s toolkit: the spike (see right). You can buy them cheaply on sites like Amazon.

They were used to ‘file’ items that you might need to refer to later. A kind of halfway house between the bin and the filing cabinet.

‘Spike’ was both a noun, as in ‘Have you got a spike?’ and as a verb, as in : ‘You’d better spike that article’.

You don’t see them very often these days: I suspect They’ve been banned under Health and safety laws now … probably a good thing as I nearly put my hand through mine on several occasions!

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