Why is agate called "agate"?

Ha ha...

I interned as a copy editor that summer and I've never seen a place abuse the agate guys like that place did...

 

Haven't heard that term in probably 35 years. I knew it was a type of printing process, but that's it.
I admit to looking it up before responding here.

 

Kick ass. I've been wondering for years.

 

Somebody here says agate (5 1/2 point type) in England is called "ruby."

 

I'm hazy on the details now, but now-retired LAT editor Dave Moylan told me that agate was truly called ruby, and agate was in fact a bigger typeface, by definition. There was a third, too, but damned if I can remember what it is.

 

That's true, but the other way around. Ruby is 6 pt. type. True agate is 5.5 pt. type.
Dave Moylan, one of the best this business has ever seen, was of course, right.

 

Is it time for me to tell tales of being the bowling agate clerk in Milwaukee on Wednesday and Friday nights?
Or is it time for my nap?
I forget.

 

They called the Sunday photo section that in my hometown paper...and this was well into the 1980s. I guess newspapers have always been big on holding on to the past.