Im Reich der Interpunktionen

Im Reich der Interpunktionen
nicht fürder goldner Friede prunkt:

Die Semikolons werden Drohnen
genannt von Beistrich und von Punkt.

Es bildet sich zur selben Stund
ein Antisemikolonbund.

Die einzigen, die stumm entweichen
(wie immer), sind die Fragezeichen.

Die Semikolons, die sehr jammern,
umstellt man mit geschwungnen Klammern
und setzt die so gefangnen Wesen
noch obendrein in Parenthesen.

Das Minuszeichen naht, und – schwapp
da zieht er sie vom Leben ab.

Kopfschüttelnd blicken auf die Leichen
die heimgekehrten Fragezeichen.

Doch wehe! neuer Kampf sich schürzt:
Gedankenstrich auf Komma stürzt –
und fährt ihm schneidend durch den Hals,
bis dieser gleich und ebenfalls
(wie jener mörderisch bezweckt)
als Strichpunkt die Gefild bedeckt!…

Stumm trägt man auf den Totengarten
die Semikolon beider Arten.

Was übrig von Gedankenstrichen,
kommt schwarz und schweigsam nachgeschlichen.
Das Ausrufszeichen hält die Predigt;
das Kolon dient ihm als Adjunkt.

Dann, jeder Kommaform entledigt,
stapft heimwärts man, Strich, Punkt,
Strich, Punkt…

Christian Morgenstern (1871 – 1914), deutscher Schriftsteller, Dramaturg, Journalist und Übersetzer (Quelle: aphorismen.de)

And here the translation into English:

The peaceful land of Punctuation
is filled with tension overnight

When the stops and commas of the nation
call the semicolons “parasites”

Within the hour they form their troops,
an anti-semicolon group

The question marks avoid the scrape
(as always) and quietly escape

The semicolons’ mournful racket
is drowned out by surrounding brackets

And then the captured creature freezes
Imprisoned by parentheses

The dreaded minus sign arrives
and — slash! — ends the captives’ lives

The question marks, now homeward-bound,
pity the corpses on the ground

But, woe! A new war looms large,
as dashes against commas charge

And cut across the commas’ necks
so that the beheaded wrecks

(the dashes delight in gore)
as semicolons hit the floor

Both semicolon types they bury
in silence in the cemetery

Those dashes that still remain,
Creep blackly behind the mourning train

The exclamation holds a sermon
with colon’s help, right on the spot

Then through their comma-form free nation
They all march home: dash, dot, dash, dot…

There is a great poem about bad design on street signs in New York. Gelett Burgess an artist and poet wrote a poem to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1943 complaining about  legibility of numbers on street signs. Im sure the bad lettering isn't due to artists being artistic! Unlike in Fontstruct where we CAN and often SHOULD break away from the habitual, with the aim of exploring new avenues and opening minds to possibilities and individualism  ;) See the poem here: http://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/nyc-type-poem.jpg

I'll give two stanzasas a taster:

#

They look so much alike they mix

us up: we feel  like lunatics

who cannot tell a nine from six

#

The citizen, the rube, the child

alike are puzzled , duped and riled

by numbers similarly styled

In short: when a font has to give information or instruction it should be neat and have unmistakeable glyphs, readable, specially if the text has to be read from a distance larger than arm's length. Such  font shouldn't be dramatic, flowery, overpowering, weak, made for a different purpose, avant-garde or sloppy careless.

As I said: thankfully we can explore our inner artist and express our creativity in Fontstruct, and find what works for us and our personal world image - as well as within the expectations we have of our own creativity, problem solving, inventiveness and fonts.

On FontStruct's 10th birthday I wish to remind the live feed of an Ode To FontStruct written so long ago that I have forgotten the writer's name (sincerely sorry!!)

An Ode to FontStruct

A blank grid of squares,
A vast, empty zone;
Creativity comes,
Ent’ring the unknown.

Then brick by brick,
The tower is grown;
Glyphs will emerge
From many seeds sown.

Selecting, erasing,
Stacks like a drone;
Filling the space with
Sounds of a trombone.

“More Latin!” they cried,
All singing in tone;
The mighty pencil
Zooming like a cyclone.

Perfection will come
Like glass being blown;
When dust has been settled
Emerges a throne.

The font has arrived,
Let this news be known;
A magnificent product,
A win cast in stone.

To the writer of this ode: please forgive my placing your work here. I can't remember your name, meaning I'm resending your work into the live feed without your express permission. I can't even remember when you published this poem and I have no idea when I found and copied it. Please contact me if you want me to remove your work from this page!

Thank you Elmo for remembering!! I discovered the Ode long ago and felt sad that I  had no author's name. I recently discovered the poem in an old folder and thought I could rekindle interest in the live feed. I've messaged 3moDuDe about it.

Oups! I accidentally published the wrong semicolon image, the one I used says "THOUGHTS","PHRASES","PLACES".  I plead for a few moments after publishing to allow removal of posted wrong images.

Punctuation marks are important, my young grandsons are starting to discover these strange creatures in phrases ....... I made some fridge magnets to help them remember

This is not  text  but still it's visual. A video with  fun and weird  home-assembled sculptural collage-type animals that move around and create the letters of the alphabet.

As I like letters and FontStruct I've looked for font-typography-writing interesting things. Meet the LIPOGRAM with our favourite pangram The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog . Our favourite test for checking a font in use, but this pangram won't allow us to check the letter "S".

And here's another:

A jovial swain should not complain

Of any buxom fair

Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain

To quiz his awkward air.

This text makes sense and it rhymes. Even without using the letter "E" ;)

Wikipedia tells us: Writing a lipogram may be a trivial task when avoiding uncommon letters like Z, J, Q, or X, but it is much more challenging to avoid common letters like E, T, or A in the English language, as the author must omit many ordinary words.

This gives text where words containing a specific letter are replaced by words with don't use the prohibited letter. Another type of lipogram allows all words but a specific letter has to be omitted whenever the word contains it. This  gives unusual looking text,  with a lot of spaces (in words as well as the word spacing). It's also possible to have text with shortened words as the chosen letter simply has no place.

Example of this is the fairy tale "The Wonderful O" (1957) by Amercian author James Thurber, in which villains ban the letter 'O' from use by the inhabitants of the island of Oooroo.

BWM, good contribution! I think I'll ask for some unusual books for my next birthday ...........

If you're interested in apostrophes - or have no idea what they are and do: there is a song about its importance Apostrophe Apostacy sung by BobbyJoe Demos And this strange little bit-of-a-line even has it's personal protection society

Meek's P-poster ((  Happy 16thAnniversary, FONTSTRUCT !  And very many returns !!!  )) made me smile
 

Meek's P-poster ((  Happy 16thAnniversary, FONTSTRUCT !  And very many returns !!!  )) made me smile