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weinzierl 8 hours ago [-]
"The first has to do with the direction of reading. I believe the second is, like many things in typography, customary; there’s nothing inherently better than right-leaning letters, except we’re used to them since those are the only ones we ever see."
Not at all. It is simply because the tip of a quill and the nib of a traditional[1] fountain pen cannot move in any direction. The way you hold it if you are right handed forbids moving in the
"backslash"* direction[2] upwards. You can "draw" from top down but not "shove" upwards in that direction. Since in joined script we start letters mostly from the baseline (and have connecting strokes) this makes the "right leaning slant" much easier to write.
The anatomy of a right handed writer also plays a role. When you write fast, the hand pivots at the wrist and fingers as it moves rightward, and that produces a forward slant.
[1] Modern fountain pen nibs have a little ball at tip. So even if you used on in primary school you might not have noticed the directional effect.
[2] That is why the slash (virgula) has existed for centuries while the backslash is an invention of the computer age.
voidUpdate 6 hours ago [-]
I'm surprised no left handed writer before the computer age tried to do a forward slash, found it doesn't work, and said "fuck it" and did a backslash
Also, when left-handed writing became accepted, there were special left handed pens (with a broader tip that you can push forward without it ‘biting’ into the paper)
Finally, how do you know nobody did that, and got harassed for writing incorrectly?
“Particularly when produced spontaneously, mirror writing is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon: the mirroring may range from as small an item as a single reversed letter, through numerous reversed letters but not words, to thousands of pages of mirrored script; the place in the word in which a mirror letter occurs is variable, and numerals may or may not be reversed too”
voidUpdate 56 minutes ago [-]
> Also, when left-handed writing became accepted, there were special left handed pens
its still a very unnatural action to do when writing, compared to a backslash
> Finally, how do you know nobody did that, and got harassed for writing incorrectly?
The parent asserts that it was invented for computer use, not beforehand. If a left handed person does it, its been invented beforehand
viggity 17 minutes ago [-]
There are some fascinating theories on how writing media affects writing direction and glyph shape. A lot of southeast asian languages have a lot of curves/circles because they'd use a stylus on a banana leaf and the curves are less likely to run a split in the leaf.
john_saptra 10 hours ago [-]
Marcin's attention to details, showcasing works that demonstrate the craftsmanship in what is typically considered mundane, is really amazing!
golem14 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, please continue to the Lord's work. Reading this site is always a pleasure.
jjcm 12 hours ago [-]
I’m a simple man. I see a post from Marcin about typography or keyboards and I upvote. He has such a passion for this and I’ve always loved his storytelling.
SA9G 12 hours ago [-]
So pleasant to see elegance in such seemingly mundane places. Someone cared and took a little extra time. Bravo to them!
rablackburn 11 hours ago [-]
What a lovely example to end on.
Personally, I (guiltily) love using ol'fashioned contractions.
I wish it were more normalised.
ihm 11 hours ago [-]
I thought maybe to account for the origin of italics, it could be that it's easier to slant in that direction while writing left-to-right than the other way.
However, when people write Yiddish (which has a right-to-left script) they slant the same way[^1], whereas you'd expect the opposite if it were easier, so maybe it is just arbitrary.
Not at all. It is simply because the tip of a quill and the nib of a traditional[1] fountain pen cannot move in any direction. The way you hold it if you are right handed forbids moving in the
"backslash"* direction[2] upwards. You can "draw" from top down but not "shove" upwards in that direction. Since in joined script we start letters mostly from the baseline (and have connecting strokes) this makes the "right leaning slant" much easier to write.The anatomy of a right handed writer also plays a role. When you write fast, the hand pivots at the wrist and fingers as it moves rightward, and that produces a forward slant.
[1] Modern fountain pen nibs have a little ball at tip. So even if you used on in primary school you might not have noticed the directional effect.
[2] That is why the slash (virgula) has existed for centuries while the backslash is an invention of the computer age.
Also, when left-handed writing became accepted, there were special left handed pens (with a broader tip that you can push forward without it ‘biting’ into the paper)
Finally, how do you know nobody did that, and got harassed for writing incorrectly?
Left-handedness is somewhat associated with mirror writing (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2117809/:
“Particularly when produced spontaneously, mirror writing is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon: the mirroring may range from as small an item as a single reversed letter, through numerous reversed letters but not words, to thousands of pages of mirrored script; the place in the word in which a mirror letter occurs is variable, and numerals may or may not be reversed too”
its still a very unnatural action to do when writing, compared to a backslash
> Finally, how do you know nobody did that, and got harassed for writing incorrectly?
The parent asserts that it was invented for computer use, not beforehand. If a left handed person does it, its been invented beforehand
Personally, I (guiltily) love using ol'fashioned contractions. I wish it were more normalised.
However, when people write Yiddish (which has a right-to-left script) they slant the same way[^1], whereas you'd expect the opposite if it were easier, so maybe it is just arbitrary.
[^1]: An example of Yiddish handwriting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_orthography#/media/Fil...