Green ink

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Green ink is a British journalistic term for the frothing of lunatics.[1][2] Back when letters to news outlets were produced in an archaic medium based on materials known as "paper" and "ink", the nutters would supposedly always write their IMPORTANT INFORMATION in green. It is not known just how many such letters actually were, or if this is just urban legend, though there are occasional reports of physical manifestations.[3]

The term remains a useful metaphor for similar frothing in the electronic age, even though the pages are likely to include every colour rejected from the rainbow, in a tasty variety of fonts. Though the truly exquisite green ink is often found in carefully-formatted black and white PDFs.

One possible reason for people to use green ink to give them extra authority is that Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first director of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, commonly known as MI6, Military Intelligence, Section 6) always used green ink and would sign documents with a green "C" (for "chief"), a practice that subsequent chiefs of SIS have followed.

[edit] See also

[edit] External inks

[edit] Footnotes

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