Shady Characters The Secret Life Of Punctuation Symbols And Other Typographical Marks

Author : Keith Houston
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393064425
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks written by Keith Houston and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing the secret history of punctuation, this tour of two thousand years of the written word, from ancient Greece to the Internet, explores the parallel histories of language and typography throughout the world and across time.

Author : Keith Houston
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393244806
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time written by Keith Houston and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Everybody who has ever read a book will benefit from the way Keith Houston explores the most powerful object of our time. And everybody who has read it will agree that reports of the book’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”—Erik Spiekermann, typographer We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages—of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-color illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous and surprising history behind humanity’s most important—and universal—information technology.

Author : Simon Garfield
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101577819
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Just My Type written by Simon Garfield and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hugely entertaining and revealing guide to the history of type that asks, What does your favorite font say about you? Fonts surround us every day, on street signs and buildings, on movie posters and books, and on just about every product we buy. But where do fonts come from, and why do we need so many? Who is responsible for the staid practicality of Times New Roman, the cool anonymity of Arial, or the irritating levity of Comic Sans (and the movement to ban it)? Typefaces are now 560 years old, but we barely knew their names until about twenty years ago when the pull-down font menus on our first computers made us all the gods of type. Beginning in the early days of Gutenberg and ending with the most adventurous digital fonts, Simon Garfield explores the rich history and subtle powers of type. He goes on to investigate a range of modern mysteries, including how Helvetica took over the world, what inspires the seeming ubiquitous use of Trajan on bad movie posters, and exactly why the all-type cover of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus was so effective. It also examines why the "T" in the Beatles logo is longer than the other letters and how Gotham helped Barack Obama into the White House. A must-have book for the design conscious, Just My Type's cheeky irreverence will also charm everyone who loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Schott's Original Miscellany.

Author : David Crystal
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1466865644
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Making a Point written by David Crystal and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The triumphant concluding volume in David Crystal's classic trilogy on the English language combines the first history of English punctuation with a complete guide on how to use it. Behind every punctuation mark lies a thousand stories. The punctuation of English, marked with occasional rationality, is founded on arbitrariness and littered with oddities. For a system of a few dozen marks it generates a disproportionate degree of uncertainty and passion, inspiring organizations like the Apostrophe Protection Society and sending enthusiasts, correction-pens in hand, in a crusade against error across the United States. Professor Crystal leads us through this minefield with characteristic wit, clarity, and commonsense. In David Crystal's Making a Point, he gives a fascinating account of the origin and progress of every kind of punctuation mark over one and a half millennia and offers sound advice on how punctuation may be used to meet the needs of every occasion and context.

Author : Keith Houston
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 1846146488
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shady Characters written by Keith Houston and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keith Houston's entertaining book, inspired by his popular blog shadycharacters.co.uk, tells the unexpected stories of some unusual, and familiar, typographical marks and reveals a fascinating history of writing. Every character we write or type is a link to the past, and in today's printed, electronic and scrawled writing their history stares right back at us. This book charts the lives of some of the most intriguing examples, like how the pilcrow went from its noble origins in ancient Greece to near obsolescence, only to be revived again in word processing software. Each character reflects the bust and boom endured by punctuation with each new technological innovation and together they form a rich history of written communication. Keith Houston is the founder of ShadyCharacters.co.uk, where he writes about the unusual stories behind some well-known - and some rather more outlandish - marks of punctuation.

Author : Ben Yagoda
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1594488487
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Not Write Bad written by Ben Yagoda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership. He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that also display clarity, precision, and grace. Then he focuses on crafting whole paragraphs—with attention to cadence, consistency of tone, sentence transitions, and paragraph length. In a fun, comprehensive guide, Yagoda lays out the simple steps we can all take to make our writing more effective, more interesting—and just plain better.

Author : David Sacks
Publisher : Vintage Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307371034
Total Pages : 415 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Letter Perfect written by David Sacks and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-08-20 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions -- the alphabet. The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern readers, tracing its development from ancient forms, and discussing its noteworthy role in literature and other media. We learn, for example, why the letter X has a sinister and sexual aura, how B came to signify second best, why the word “mother” in many languages starts with M, and what is the story of O. Packed with information and lavishly illustrated, Letter Perfect is not only accessible and entertaining, but essential to the appreciation of our own language.

Author : Bernhard Roetzel
Publisher : H.F.Ullmann Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9783848000289
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Guy's Guide to Style written by Bernhard Roetzel and published by H.F.Ullmann Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bernhard Roetzel's Guy's Guide to Style illustrates the basic, generally appropriate and long-term fundamentals of a good fashion style for every man, and gives practical tips for all situations from business meetings and festive occasions to recreational activities. Outfit examples assist with the right combinations of clothing. The Guy's Guide to Style thus will actually be a style advisor and should be in every men's pocket.

Author : Claire Cock-starkey
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781851245369
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hyphens and Hashtags∗ - ∗the Stories Behind the Symbols on Our Keyboard written by Claire Cock-starkey and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The punctuation marks, mathematical symbols and glyphs which haunt the edges of our keyboards have evolved over many hundreds of years. They shape our understanding of texts, calculations and online interactions. Without these symbols all texts would run in endless unbroken lines of letters and numbers. Many hands and minds have created, refined and promulgated the symbols which give form to our written communication. Through individual entries discussing the story behind each example, 'Hyphens & Hashtags' reveals the long road many of these special characters have taken on their way into general use. In the digital age of communication, some symbols have gained an additional meaning or a new lease of life - the colon now doubles up as the eyes of a smiling face emoticon and the hashtag has travelled from obscurity to an essential component of social media. Alongside historical roots, this book also considers ever-evolving modern usage and uncovers those symbols which have now fallen out of fashion. 'Hyphens & Hashtags' casts a well-deserved spot-light on these stalwarts of typography whose handy knack for summing up a command or concept in simple shorthand marshals our sentences, clarifies a calculation or adds some much-needed emotion to our online interactions.

Author : Hendrik Weber
Publisher : Niggli
ISBN 13 : 9783721210095
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Italic written by Hendrik Weber and published by Niggli. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study on the laws and principles of italic accentuating letters, words and sentences aimed particularly at all those who deal with letters professionally or privately.