Have you ever been reading a book and came across the phrase “this page intentionally left blank”? What is with that? It is not only blatantly dishonest, but quite frankly a complete waste of paper as well.
If the page is supposed to be blank, then leave it blank. Don’t tell me it is supposed to be blank by printing on the page – which then means the page is no longer blank. I mean honestly, what purpose does this serve? This is the type of thing that starts black holes.
I honestly have to wonder where this practice started. I imagine in the past years ago when someone wanted to leave a page blank that is exactly what they did, but then somebody, somewhere, for some reason decided they had to call the author or the publisher or the printer and find out why their particular copy of the book was missing a page.
I guess the lack of a page number in the lower corner wasn’t enough clue that the page isn’t supposed to have anything on it, and this person had nothing better to do that complain about a missing page that really isn’t missing, but is this entire concept due to one person complaining? If not, is there really a benefit to printing “this page intentionally left blank” in the first place? Is there a huge problem with people complaining about missing pages – so much so that book publishers now have to deal with the problem by printing this text on an otherwise clean page?
How about a new phrase that actually makes sense – something like “pay no attention to this page as it has nothing to do with the remainder of the book”.
Yea… it might not have the same ring to it, but at least it is honest.
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