The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Now I have nightmares for weeks...

How about some Comic Sans?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

How about some Comic Sans?

There's a thread about this on Bluesky atm, reminding me of the enduring mystery about this - why do people hate it? I mean, I wouldn't want to read a book in it, but it's just a font, it ain't butchering babies or poisoning pristine lakes. The depth of feeling it provokes utterly bewilders me. Then again, I don't care about kerning either.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

AND LARGE FONT SIZES!!!!

Is this font size any better?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

!!! YES !!!

¡¡¡Sí!!!

All caps also drop caps, large raised caps, small caps at all at all.

Badly done Dialect, especially of Irish characters, Yorkshire, Glasgow, American South.

Misuse or excessive – en dash – or—em dash—or bold or italic (or every bold and italic coded as <strong> and <em>) and ellipsis…

Use someone's style guide at the very least. Don't try and duplicate 19th C. paper books, or modern ones aping them.

Not realising ‘90s should be ’90s. A “bug” since forever in almost all wordprocessors when you blindly rely on smart quote conversion.

Using ' or " for quotes.
Using ' or " or ’ or ” instead of prime ′ and double prime ″ for feet, inches, minutes & seconds (angular)

Using white space (space, tab, newline) instead of paragraph margin styles.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is this font size any better?

Annoying on a paper book!

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Quoth

¡¡¡Sí!!!
Not realising ‘90s should be ’90s.

Huh? I'd say '90s.
Isn't apostrophe for contraction and isn't skipping century a contraction?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Renate

Huh? I'd say '90s.
Isn't apostrophe for contraction and isn't skipping century a contraction?

I show an opening single quote, which is what a word processor does by default (and is wrong) and then the correct version. Typographically, in English, an apostrophe and closing single quote are the same glpyh/symbol, a “’”

Have you used a typewriter single quote? It is not an apostrophe, opening quote or closing quote. It’s only ever used legitimately in programming, computer/phone text not typeset, and certain foreign words or for dictionary entries.

Indeed ’90s and ’tis are examples of leading apostrophes. You will sometimes see even paper books with the wrong ‘90s and ‘tis because that’s what uncorrected smart quote feature does.

The Teletype (since 1928) was based on the typewriter which for mechanical reasons used ' and " instead of extra keys. Some did not have 1 or 0 either. Computers used teletypes for about 30 years.

IBM compounded the issue with the stupid US layout PC Keyboard. UNIX, Solaris, Linux at least had the Compose Key and non-US keyboards were the first on PC with Alt-Gr for extra characters, Though MS Windows Keyboard maps make poor use of it compared to Linux since it appeared.

None of it is an excuse for bad proofing. Issues using a PC for a MSS have been known since before the IBM PC, since 1976 (CP/M based word processing).

[HLS]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Now I have nightmares for weeks...

OR MULTI COLORS

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

There's a thread about this on Bluesky atm, reminding me of the enduring mystery about this - why do people hate it? I mean, I wouldn't want to read a book in it, but it's just a font, it ain't butchering babies or poisoning pristine lakes. The depth of feeling it provokes utterly bewilders me. Then again, I don't care about kerning either.

For the same reason people hate Nickelback: it's used too much.

Also, it was often used in wildly inappropriate situations - it was meant for comic books and the such, but then people used it for things like office memos.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

There's a thread about this on Bluesky atm, reminding me of the enduring mystery about this - why do people hate it? I mean, I wouldn't want to read a book in it, but it's just a font, it ain't butchering babies or poisoning pristine lakes. The depth of feeling it provokes utterly bewilders me. Then again, I don't care about kerning either.

Really wanna know?

The absurdity of Designer snobbery. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. And it's not just poor old Comic Sans that gets hosed this way--even tho Old CS is actually highly readable, especially for young people and those with vision issues--other fonts like Bleeding Cowboys, Papyrus, etc. all get this sort of sneering disdain.

Why? WHY? Is it due to some horrible typographic disaster that the foundry created? Is it due to some big dark secret (like Gill Sans' creator's behavior) harbored? Anything like that? Noooooo..

HELL NO. It's because speaking bluntly, it lost its cool. It lost its cool because at one point in time, designers had it, found it, used it, loved it. And then, suddenly--gasp!!!--they're walking down the street, feeling smug in their design-trained sensibility, and the superiority of their taste levels, how they know how to deploy white space and all that, and they glance over at the sandwich board menu sitting in front of that new chi-chi pub and...OMG! OHMYGOD, the owner used...gasp, BLEEDING COWBOYS for the menu! The Hoi Polloi found and used the font!

REGULAR EVERYDAY PEOPLE USED IT! And then, right then, right here, the font loses its cachet, its uniquity, the coolness factor of being beloved of the In Crowd, Cafe Society, the Beau monde...and the typeface immediately starts being pushed over Niagara Falls and derided everywhere--everywhere--it is espied. You are snickered at, laughed at, chastised, by designers, if you use it.

The sneering condescension then commences more widely, aimed at the Mom and Pop stores, the companies with their own websites, you-name-it. And that's the story. Nothing more--and nothing less.

Once the "little people" start using it, a font's (typeface to be accurate) popularity is over. At least, by the hoity-toity designers that consider themselves above and beyond the regular folks.

Th-tha-tha-that's all, folks.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Slab Serif type fonts are awful.

[DNSB]

@thegodsannointedarbiterofeverythingtypographics

In your opinion.

[ownedbycats]

On one of my Discord servers, we were talking about how awkward it is to be reading a novel and then recognize it as a fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off - they never quite read right, taking a story based in an established universe (and usually with established characters) and then just trying to strip every bit of that universe from it.

Especially awkward is when you can recognize exactly which fandom it's from. I haven't any specific examples without going back through my read books, but I have had this happen before.

50 Shades of Grey is probably the most famous example. I remember seeing a copy for sale at a local store, I randomly picked it up and started reading a random page, thought "this is not well-written" and put it back down.

[Aleron Ives]

How can you not know it's a fanfiction from the start? Do you not compare the titles you buy to the author's bibliography to see if they're genuine before you buy them?

[John F]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

How can you not know it's a fanfiction from the start? Do you not compare the titles you buy to the author's bibliography to see if they're genuine before you buy them?

Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction?