Punctuation pugilistics & lovely lettering

[PublishingMojo]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

I like this sign in Lowell, Massachusetts. It's hand-lettered in the old-school way, with a relaxed grace that speaks of years of discipline.
I like the story it tells, too. I didn't know people could defend their views on such arcane matters as punctuation with physical force. Now that I know, the first person who looks at this handlettering and asks me what font it is will get a knuckle sandwich.

[hrant]

that's so pretty typography!!!
http://tinyurl.com/ahj3k42

hhp

[5star]

Ahem ... what font is that handlettering?

n.

[PublishingMojo]

[tmac]

I would like to know who won the fight. Old Bill is sly, if not underhanded, while at this point Jack was a corpulent momma's boys. So ... do you know who was defending the Oxford comma?

[PublishingMojo]

I learned to use the Oxford comma (or the serial comma, as I was taught) by Sister Agnes Virginia, who, with her trusty ruler, could have beat the crap out of Kerouac and Burroughs one at a time or both together.

[charles_e]

RE: the Oxford comma -- sometimes it's absolutely necessary, as in

"We offer Corn Flakes, Cheerios, and Wheaties."

[5star]

Ah, Catholic ...that explains everything.

n.

[oldnick]

Well, of course Catholic! That always explains everything…

[PublishingMojo]

John Waters (of Pink Flamingos fame) went to the same high school I did. Apparently it messed up his head even worse than it did mine.

[PublishingMojo]

[duplicate]

[kentlew]

RE: the Oxford comma -- sometimes it's absolutely necessary, as in

. . . this book dedication: “For my parents, God, and Ayn Rand.”

[charles_e]

Goodness Kent, you must know some republicans...

I suppose it shouldn't be used for

"...tennis shoes, sandals and boots."

[hrant]

But the ampersand is under-rated too.
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/22426-forwarding#comment-72612

hhp

[Nick Shinn]

You could write a book about this sort of thing…

[kentlew]

Charles — I got that example from my mother, who is a copyeditor. I don’t recall the book (if I even ever knew the title).

Nick — My biggest pet peeve about Truss’s book (that edition anyway) is that the text font, Quadraat, did not have kern pairs for comma/period and close quotes, in either order. These pairs appear a lot in the text, with distracting holes. “The Zero Kern Approach to Punctuation”!