Word of the day - typography
Typography is:
1. the art or process of printing from type;
2. the art or process of setting and arranging type for printing;
3. the arrangement, style, or general appearance of printed matter
(from yourdictionary).
It comes via French and Latin from the Greek τύπος (typos), to strike + γραφία (graphia), to write.
I chose this word today because I found an interesting blog about typhography called I Love Typography. As well as discussing typography, the author also gives advice on creating your own fonts, something that quite a few people ask me about. There are also some slightly less-than-serious posts, such as this one about Typoholism, “A disorder characterized by the excessive consumption of and dependence on type…”.
I think I ’suffer’ from typoholism, and a related condition for which I can’t think of a word at the moment. Can you think of a word for my love of languages and writing systems? Perhaps ‘panglotophilia’.
2 Responses to “Word of the day - typography”
dmh on 10 Nov 2007 at 9:07 am #
What about Linguaholic, sounds and looks just like a real word and has a nice ring to it ;) but with only 91 hits on google, it’s definitely ripe for dissemination to the masses…
dmh on 10 Nov 2007 at 9:13 am #
Maybe there should be an L.A. (Linguaholics Anonymous) site for all of us linguaphiles. Can you imagine “hi my name’s dmh and I’m a linguaholic. I speak French, Chinese and Russian pretty well, can read Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, my German’s coming along and I’m starting to get a good feel for Persian…'’ “Is that all?” *Looks at the floor* “Well, some Latin, but only on weekends, at parties, sometimes.”