Why is the Oktavheft called Oktavheft?

instagram viewer

Everyone knows it from their own school days and maybe you will come into contact with it again now that your children are going to school - the octave notebook. But have you ever wondered why the octave book is called that? The question is actually quite easy to answer, this is due to the type of folding of the paper sheets that were used for letterpress printing.

An octave notebook is often used as a vocabulary notebook.
An octave notebook is often used as a vocabulary notebook.

Why the octave book is called that

Before addressing the question of why the Oktavheft is called Oktavheft, you should first take a closer look at the booklet itself.

  • An octave notebook corresponds roughly to today's DIN A5 standard, which specifies a spine length of 210 mm. The booklet does not correspond exactly to this dimension, the length of the spine fluctuates between 185 and 225 mm.
  • The word Oktavheft is made up of the words "Oktave" or "octo" and "Heft". Octave, on the other hand, comes from Latin and is a name for the number eight. From this it can be deduced that the booklet must have something to do with an eighth part. It is also often referred to as the so-called octave format.
  • Here you have to travel far back in time when printing was in its infancy. Here the so-called octave format was used by folding sheets of paper 3 times and breaking 8 sheets of paper from them, which in turn resulted in 16 pages that could be printed on. An octave notebook is so named because it is the size of the eighth part of the original sheet.
  • The size of the leaves changed over time, initially it was determined completely arbitrarily. Only at the beginning of the 20th In the 19th century, paper sizes were standardized, so that an octave notebook is roughly the size of DIN A5 today.
  • Car tire diameter - information

    Why is the diameter of car tires a question that not everyone in this country is the same ...

Uses of the octave booklet

  • These booklets are usually a bit smaller than the DIN A5 standard, which makes them very handy. Usually the booklets are completely lined with simple lines, but the pages are also halved by a vertical dividing line. This makes the exercise books ideal vocabulary exercise books because you have the foreign language on the first half of a page You can enter the German translation of the vocabulary on the other half, always in the appropriate row Vocabulary. This also makes it easier for you to learn the vocabulary, you can easily query yourself by always holding half of the page.
  • Of course, you can also use this very handy booklet just for your notes; octave booklets are also available completely blank or checkered.
  • The class teachers are happy to use the exercise books as a means of communication between teacher and parents; the exercise books are then purchased as communication books.

How helpful do you find this article?

click fraud protection