the.com/blueprint
the only document where mistakes cost pennies instead of skyscrapers.
means A detailed plan or technical drawing for something to be built or carried out, or by extension any guiding scheme for achieving a goal.
from Literally a print that came out blue. In the 19th century, engineers and architects reproduced drawings using the cyanotype process: coat paper with iron salts, lay the original design over it, expose it to light, and wash it — leaving brilliant white lines on a deep Prussian-blue background. The name stuck so well that 'blueprint' now means the plan itself, long after the chemistry that made it blue was retired for cheaper copying methods.
- why blue
- Iron chemicals turned exposed paper Prussian blue
- invented 1842
- Astronomer John Herschel discovered the cyanotype process
- now obsolete
- CAD killed the chemicals, kept the word
- reversed colors
- Lines stayed white, background drank the dye
- slang shift
- Now means any plan, never actual paper
titanic ship blueprint — designed by thomas andrews in 1911, 882 feet long with 16 watertight compartments