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A Beautifully Illustrated Glossary of Typographic Terms
Need a handy guide to help you keep your gadzookses and your swashes straight? Look no further than this handy glossary of typographical terms from Canva. Go to their website to get even more juicy information about alternate glyphs, kerning, and more: https://designschool.canva.com/blog/typography-terms. If your appetite for typographical info still isn’t sated, you can always […]
English 3.0
There seems to be an ever present anxiety that the English language is on the edge of some catastrophe. But never fear, it’s held up just fine to the technological upheavals of the printing press, radio and cable TV, and it will weather blogs, podcasts and YouTube, as well. This isn’t to say that the […]
The History of Typography – Animated Short
The History of Typography – Animated Short from Ben Barrett-Forrest on Vimeo.
The Evolution of the International Symbol of Access
Okay, so this post isn’t about a word per se, but I’m willing to stretch the purview of the Word Blog for a day, so I can share the evolution of the International Symbol of Access (ISA) with you. The ISA is part of a language read daily all over the globe: the language of ISO […]
Yell
Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Yell, v. to make a hideous screaming noise. Word in the Wild: When Prapti tried using pliers to yank the gum from Jim’s hair, he yelled. Okay, so I’m making a bit of an exception this time in our list of old and dusty words because I like J. Jenkins’s definition of yell […]
Imagining a World without Words
I love Radiolab’s podcasts, and I especially love this one. I’ve listened to it several times, and each time it fills me with a sense of just how crucial language is. I suspect that at least part of my fascination with language stems from the fact that my brother, who is a low-functioning autistic and […]
Rare as Hen’s Teeth
Twists & Turns of Phrase When something is as rare (or scarce) as hen’s teeth, it is very rare to find it, perhaps even impossible. This phrase first came into use in mid–19th century America, where anyone with a chicken coop could see that birds have beaks, not teeth. Interestingly, though, some researchers at the […]