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SHADY CHARACTERS: THE SECRET LIFE OF , SYMBOLS, AND OTHER TYPOGRAPHICAL MARKS PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Keith Houston | 352 pages | 24 Sep 2013 | WW Norton & Co | 9780393064421 | English | New York, United States Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks PDF Book I recommend this book to all who are interested in matters of punctuation, and I apologize if any of the symbols that I have noted in this review do not show up on all viewers and browsers. And of course an entirely other book could cover symbols used in mathematical notation. Welcome back. Intent on letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading classic authors, Introduced into the history of writing throughout various stages of history when writing meant hand writing on paper or parchment it was easy for punctuation marks to be born, evolve and exist above, below, or in the margins of the written material. Well, alright then. The book is often engrossing… An unusual triumph of the human ability to find exaltation in the mundane. View 2 comments. Faithful and , and quotation marks and their long history. And where did come from--I prefer that term to star--or the dagger? By which I mean, of course: this. Some have become part of the set of modern written language, while others have faded, especially the various attempts at the irony mark. Well-researched, well- written account of for the most part how some obscure punctuation marks developed in form over time rather than slanted toward usage, say, although any history is necessarily going to touch on that. A good break of non-fiction. You know the saying: There's no time like the present March 15, Oh, I forgot to mention that I had my attention drawn to the narrow gutterstrip by my cousin who is a book binder. There's also a decent depth of information in this book from a "tech" perspective — interestingly, this book cites the Python 2. A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and . Kaye Cossar Stokes. Related Searches. My screen is always sprinkled with tiny dots floating in midair between w Another great Goodreads first reads win! Read and enjoy! No library descriptions found. But it's not a great read; certainly nowhere near "Confessions of a Queen. Paperback List Price: There are many surprises and amusing facts - such as the large variety of , and how many of these ornate marks are due to scribes being lazy. Details if other :. I remember being tickled at the concept upon learning of it in the Chicago Manual it is as subtle as it is useful , and Stan more than does it justice at Sentence First. Highly recommended. The advent of the printing press brought a level of standardization to language, but also a winnowing. Punctuation is so prevalent and seems so fixed that it is treated as just furniture in the house in which words live, and its origins and evolution are assumed or ignored. Amazon Kindle 0 editions. Questions about the book? Perhaps some of the more esoteric marks discussed will make a form of comeback in the new digitalised platforms we enjoy today on our computers… Recommended for anyone interested in typography, punctuation and graphic design. A hand with a pointing finger--maybe with a nice cuff or a ruffled flounce, perhaps with hand in a fist or finger outlandishly enlongated. Martin Heidegger is perhaps the most influential, yet Officially known as the octothorpe, it apparently derives originally from the Latin libra scales pondo to weigh. On the subject of significant breaks, I am extremely late in bringing to your attention an intriguing tweet published by Katie Henry back in , but it is too good not to share:. Shady Characters is an authoritative, witty, and fascinating tour of the history and rationale behind such lesser known marks as the ampersand, manicule, the pilcrow, and the . Readers also enjoyed. If not, you have another mark lost to history. And I love it! Definitely recommended. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Published September 24th by W. Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Writer

More Details It was the flexibility of quills and vellum that made it possible to create a more variegated collection of fonts. When everything was written down there was little to no uniformity in terms of symbols and their meanings. Where did that sign come from? Glenn is an old friend of the blog and is astonishingly well-informed about books, typography and all things related: we talked about books and book history for what felt like a few minutes, but turned out to be the better part of an hour. Why employ two strokes A! I mostly enjoyed this recent "impulse request" from the library. Dear shadychars , you are the only one I can turn to in this situation. Read and enjoy! Paperback List Price: The latter turned up the earliest tweet by over a fortnight, posted on the 11th of February:. My favourite chapter would have to be the Manicule one, as it's the only piece of punctuation that was for the reader and not the writer. Keith Houston wrote a very clever and enjoyable book. I do have a tattoo of the alphabet, though! Houston covers some of the same territory, noting that quotation marks arose from the Christian desire to be as exact and accurate as possible in attributing speech to Jesus. Are you required? Escape the Present with These 24 Historical Romances. Buy at Local Store Enter your zip code below to purchase from an indie close to you. Houston documents how these shifts changed, established, and in some cases threatened punctuation. The jury is still out on yours truly. So you'd do well to read it from cover to cover. Oct 22, Spencer Borup rated it it was amazing Shelves: all-time-favorites. Perhaps a Twitter user hunting for an em alighted on a visually similar mark by mistake. However, overall, this book was a wonderful journey through history and language. Showing And how about Ampersand? The book jumps around through history, trying to pinpoint the origin of various marks. The book in question is called A pickle for the knowing ones, or, Plain truths in a homespun dress , 3 and it was self-published by the aforementioned Timothy Dexter as a gift for his friends. Quotation marks as inverted ? Having finished it, I have no idea what to do with the seven! But with the introduction of mechanical printing with Gutenberg, then the typewriter, then photo-set printing, it became necessary to standardize the shape, location, and usage of punctuation. Born in Scotland in Even Castle talked about fitting words to the page in a recent episode. Things are always in flux, and with the advent of cheap and widespread computing power there is no reason to think we aren't on the verge of a symbol revolution. How did you come to be? If you are ignorant about how people wrote and read way back when what do you mean there were no spaces between words?! In this case, I'll defer to Houston's use of the emoticon ; Very entertaining if at times slow going. This book does not read fast--it is dry in places but for the most part is interesting and even humorous. The excellent interior design was by Judith Abbate. Which I don't. Lists with This Book. Keith Houston is the author of Shady Characters and the founder of shadycharacters. Keith Houston also explains the octothorpe — otherwise known as the hashtag — and my final comment on his book is awesome. Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Reviews

For a little more flavor, the U. The reader is taken from the Ancient World, Medieval England, the advertising boom of the 's, and the dawn of the email in the 's. Questions about the book? Houston also spends quite some time on the origin of the official name octothorpe for the symbol; another odd punctuation name "pilcrow" is the backwards P that is used by word processing software to represent spacing. As a child in Abyssinia he watched the glorious armies of Ras Tafari returning from hand-to-hand battle, Your comment will be queued in Akismet! Serious fun. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. However, overall, this book was a wonderful journey through history and language. Read it. But is so much more than that. Read this, and you will understand about half the Auto-Correct settings in your word proces Serious fun. Martin Heidegger is perhaps the most influential, yet View 2 comments. Things are always in flux, and with the advent of cheap and widespread computing power there is no reason to think we aren't on the verge of a symbol revolution. Glad to see my fellow punctuation marks represented! Perhaps surprisingly there is very little discussion of the and none at all on the history of its bifurcated use as a possessive and contraction, nor does Mr. Swap 37 want. Do let me know if you come across the interrobang in the wild! If not, you have another mark lost to history.

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Read Online

Just heard your illuminating interview on Radio National NZ. Keith Houston is witty and his writing style is informative while engaging the reader in a journey into the nether regions of typography. Penumbra's Hour Bookstore Funny, surprising, and, of course, geeky. I might have to get this book. Another wonderful emphasis is the impact of technology, covering everything from Gutenberg and the first printed works all the way to the appearance of the digital smiley face. All this, and I still haven't covered the little tidbits I enjoyed: the reason why are indented, why an ampersand is called an ampersand, the rationale for on touch tone phones, the wonderful appearance of Donald Knuth and his typesetting software TeX, the question of whether you need a written symbol for ironic text, No library descriptions found. And I love it! Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. On the plus side, I learned why paragraphs are indented--and what used to occupy that . Aug 27, Grayson rated it really liked it Shelves: ebooks-local , kindle-samples , genre-language. I will admit I did that a time or two, but he always got me back within a chapter. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Regardless, life has changed for you In this internet age. Jun 16, Blue rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , giveaways-won. The book jumps around through history, trying to pinpoint the origin of various marks. I think the most insightful thing I gleaned from this book was how much technology has influenced human language. Highly recommended. Very clever. So I will never find out the history of the maniscule. Naturally, not all chapters are equally interesting -- and that's going to be a matter of taste -- and the more technical bits of individual chapters are easily skimmable until Houston moves on to another aspect of the mark in question or on to the next chapter. Why cannot printers do it the other way? It may be that the inner margins suffer so that the outer margins can breathe a bit. Most of them are printed with a very narrow gutter strip in the middle and then a wide white margin on the outside. Mostly, I am always taken by surprise to discover that writing in the computer age or the internet age, or whatever age you want to call this, has many strong ties with the past. Easy to read straight through or dip in and out of as desired. Aug 08, Abigail rated it liked it Shelves: language. Non-English editions Shady Characters is also available in Polish , published by d2d. The origin alone of the name "ampersand" and the various attempts at explaining "octothorpe" and the alternatives are just amusing enough to justify buying a copy of this to have on hand for reference. A snack-fest of history and typography, the book is divided into stand-alone chapters about the pilcrow, the interrobang, the octothorpe, the ampersand, the symbol, the asterisk and dagger, the , the dash, the manicule, quotation marks, and the various attempts to create irony marks. In following the warp and woof of individual shady characters throughout their lifetimes, it is the woven fabric of writing as a whole that emerges. Read this, and you will understand about half the Auto-Correct settings in your word proces Serious fun. Keith Houston wrote a very clever and enjoyable book. Published September 24th by W. Aug 29, Chris Kelly rated it it was amazing. A whole chapter on the hyphen, and a separate one on the dash! Hi Kaye — thanks for the comment! It takes a deliberate effort to switch languages and go hunting to find one. Still it's a very worthwhile and well researched book. So many more to learn: The dashs, both em and en and other sizes in between Driving grammarians mad when poorly used.

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