Monday, September 24, 2007

It's coming...


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 3:31 PM
subject: Important
mailed-by gmail.com


Incorrect and alternate definitions

One em is sometimes said to be equal to the width of a capital "M" in a particular typeface, as the "M" was commonly cast the full-width of the square "blocks", or "em-quads" (also "mutton-quads"), which are used in printing presses. However, in modern typefaces the character M is usually somewhat less than one em wide. Moreover, as the term has expanded to include a wider variety of languages and character sets, its meaning has evolved; this has allowed it to include those fonts, typefaces, and character sets which do not include a capital "M", such as Chinese and the Arabic alphabet.

:::::::

Likewise for the en dash. Can we say, do you think, that em and en now correspond to M and N in a digitized age of type? If not, we can no longer do the graffiti thing.

(This doesn't take away from the fact that most en dashes, such as those in the NYC subway, are too short. If a letter M is actually narrower than an emdash, and an en is half of one em, then the en dash should always be at least half as wide as the letter M.)



from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 3:43 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

it's interesting the orientalizing use of Chinese and arabic examples there. in fact, the term "gothic" to refer to sans-serif fonts (and not blackletter, for which it is sometimes also used), comes from a japanese type that got rid of the traditional finishing strokes at the end of characters. more generally, the em-width is in many ways script-independent; in fact, gutenberg's invention almost sqaures the alphabet in the same way traditional east asian block printing squared (and made discrete) monosyllabic characters.

i would say, that pre-printing, a dash was a dash. but since an emdash situation involves trailing off, while the hyphen was a direct joiner, there was probably some sort of natural tendency to come into different lengths anyway. graffitos came to age in a time when the en dash existed; they should be expected to use it.


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:01 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

But we haven't resolved our policy: whether our en dash is the width of a capital N, or a little bit wider.


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:07 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

our endash is half an emdash of whatever font we use. i think tying it to letterform width is only a useful heuristic. the point is: larger than hyphen, smaller than emdash. entirely distinct from both. there will certainly never be an endash thinner than the capital N, which makes it easy to judge if the duck used is the duck needed.


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:13 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

Useful, and enforceable? I think so. I think that, reliant on computers and not block type, this should be the rule, if it is not already


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:15 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

And did you know about this? This is precisely what Queens addresses would need. It is, however, almost exactly the same width as an en dash, depending on font.


Figure dash

The figure dash (‒) is so named because it is the same width as a digit, at least in fonts with digits of equal width.

The figure dash is used when a dash must be used within numbers, for example with telephone numbers: 634 5789. This does not indicate a range (en dash is used for that), or function as the minus sign (which has its own glyph).

The figure dash is often unavailable; in this case, one may use a hyphen-minus instead. In Unicode, the figure dash is U+2012 (decimal 8210). HTML authors must use the numeric forms or to type it unless the file is in Unicode; there is no equivalent character entity. In TeX, the standard fonts have no figure dash; however, the digits normally all have the same width as the en dash, so an en dash can be substituted in TeX.


[MESSAGES MISSING]


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:44 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

Possibly. Did you know that Oct. 18th is Meat Loaf Appreciation Day? The edible kind – but we could have our power-ballad party that night!


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:46 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

imagine a Power–Ballad Party.


from : [NAME REDACTED]
to : [NAME REDACTED]
date: Sep 24, 2007 4:49 PM
subject: Re: Important
mailed-by gmail.com

Knowledge is ballad, as they say.