A Sneak Peek…
…inside the Shady Characters book! Designer Judith Abbate has just posted a sample of the interior design on Twitter. Not to blow my own trumpet, but that red and black text does look awfully good, doesn’t it?
Miscellany № 25: An Octothorpe Follow-up
Back in The Octothorpe, part 1 of 2, I quoted typographic guru Robert Bringhurst’s claim as to the cartographic origins of the ‘#’ sign:
In cartography, it is a traditional symbol for village: eight fields around a central square. That is the source of its name. Octothorp means eight fields.1
Intermission
Apologies for the lack of posting this weekend, but I’ve been a little preoccupied by getting married! Normal service will resume next week.
Do you know Latin?
The Shady Characters manuscript is on the very cusp of completion, but eagle-eyed copy-editor Rachelle Mandik has noticed that I have inadvertently left a Latin book title untranslated in the chapter concerning the manicule (☞). The title is as follows:
Repetitio capituli: Omnis utriusque sexus; De poenitentiis et remissionibus1
Miscellany № 24: Sharp Words
France is famously protective of its language. Its latest bête noire is the hashtag, Twitter’s word for the combination of an octothorpe, or hash, and a term of interest, like this: #octothorpe. Only a scant few months after the New York Times wrote in praise of the hashtag, this innocuous neologism now finds itself officially denounced by the Orwellian-sounding Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie (CGTN). As The Local wrote recently,