I’m Keith Houston. By day I write medical visualization software but by night I cycle, play bass and write about punctuation. You can say hi on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, or get in touch via the Contact page.
As I wrote in the Introduction, Shady Characters is all about the stories behind different marks of punctuation. I started writing on this subject back in 2008 at the suggestion of a friend and over the course of the next two years I finished rough essays on a variety of different marks; this site is here to let me polish things up and publish those essays to a wider audience. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a way of giving something back to all the people who helped me unpick some obscure point of punctuation history or who pointed me in the right direction when it seemed I’d hit a dead end.
Please note that I’m a complete amateur in the worlds of punctuation and typography; although I’ve done my best to verify everything here through references to other works, there are almost certainly errors and omissions that a professional would not have made. I’d encourage you to take a look through the Further Reading and the references which accompany each entry to get the whole story!
New entries will be posted here as soon as they’re ready — experience would suggest that this will be every couple of weeks or so — and will be mirrored on the Shady Characters Facebook page, Twitter feed, Google+ page and RSS feed.
The Colophon talks a little about the technology behind this site and the Licensing page sets out copyright.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoy your visit!
12 Comments
love the design of your blog :)
Fascinating and nicely written. Get an editor and a publisher and work a book deal. You know, in your spare time.
Gorgeous type (what font is it?), splendid writing, fascinating articles.
Hi Jim — thanks! The font will depend on what you have installed on your computer, but Shady Characters will try to use, in order, one of the following: Hoefler Text, Constantia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, Georgia or a generic serif font. The Colophon gives a bit more detail.
Recommended here by either Language Hat or Language log (don’t remember which), where it was said that “the typography is lovely.”
I have to agree. Just my two cents on the typeface issue.
Pleasure being here, Keith. Like many others awfully impressed by the neat and clean look. Great use of open spaces and the fonts stand out so well.
Came here following Laurie Abkemeier’s tweet. Will visit frequently and follow your tweets.
Just found this site. What a treat! Always have loved the ampersand, so great to learn the back story.
Dear Keith,
I was wondering if you could perhaps help me out with the following characters seen on a commemorative stamp for Heydrich, in which the usual characters for born (*) and died (+) are rendered as follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heydrichmarke.jpg
Never seen anything like this before and am wondering where they came from (my guess is some form of Runen).
Thanks for your time.
jr@coastalcg.com told me this: “These are Norse runes that were adopted by the T.R. The traditional symbols which these replaced for birth and death were * and +.
The T.R. extensively used Norse runes for emblems or symbols for some of its military divisions, and sometimes the same symbol was used for multiple divisions.
Hi Lora — thanks for the comment. It’s interesting to see Norse runes used as punctuation in roman script, but it’s unfortunate that the context is so distasteful. It does rather discourage further investigation!
Hello Keith. I’m very, very excited about finding your website. It’s a wonderful place to spend some time.
Hi Michael — thanks! It’s been a pleasure to write, and I’m glad you’re enjoying reading it too.
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[...] Designer Keith Houston nützt für seinen Blog eigentlich nur rote und schwarze Typografie, aber dafür super lesbar und [...]
[...] Designer Keith Houston nützt für seinen Blog eigentlich nur rote und schwarze Typografie, aber dafür super lesbar und [...]
[...] all of you type, grammar and punctuation nerds here is a new site… Shady Characters. Keith Houston’s blog about the unusual stories behind some well-known — and some rather more outlandish — [...]