by Derek Spencer
Over at Shady Characters, Keith Houston presents a brief summary of the history of punctuation.
Very cool. I knew the function of the asterism ( ⁂ , not to be confused with the "therefore" symbol used in logic, ∴ ), but I had no idea how the manicule ( ☞ ) was meant to be used.
In the case of the manicule, form follows function: it's used to point the reader's attention to important bits of text. Sadly, it looks just awful at smaller sizes — which surely contributed to its falling out of favor. Just look at the manicule in 12 pt type:
The only way I've found to make the manicule look good is to enlarge it to a ridiculous degree. Here it is in glorious 100 pt:
In the case of the manicule, form follows function: it's used to point the reader's attention to important bits of text. Sadly, it looks just awful at smaller sizes — which surely contributed to its falling out of favor. Just look at the manicule in 12 pt type:
☞
Yeah . . . this isn't so good. Sort of looks like a bird —
I'm thinking a cardinal.
I'm thinking a cardinal.
The only way I've found to make the manicule look good is to enlarge it to a ridiculous degree. Here it is in glorious 100 pt:
☞Fantastic.
Of course, if it only looks good at large sizes, using it on a regular basis is probably more trouble than it's worth. A shame for those of us who want to clothe our websites in ostentatious 19th-century trappings.
Stay tuned for Wednesday's edition — we'll be discussing the difference between general nonfiction and informational texts. Thanks for reading!
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