Typography

["Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>]

Took a little fiddling to get Veijo's DVI file printed out; someone forgot
to set up a PostScript-resolution version of cmss8 on my system, had to
argue with METAFONT myself.

It does look very nice, and the apostrophes are clear enough.  I think I
still prefer monospaced typewriter text for occasional text, as in an
English document with bits of Lojban strewn in among it (though Veijo's
right that the interword spaces look a little much when used inside a
regular Roman paragraph), or for small selections of Lojban even set off in
separate paragraphs.  But a whole book or chapter entirely in typewriter
font could probably get tiresome on the eyes, and lining up letters is not
very useful in that situation, while the sans-serif text seems easier to
read in large quantity.  Good thinking on Veijo's part to stay with the
monospaced typewriter font for the entries in the gismu lists, so they *do*
still line up, all the same length.  Sans-serif fonts aren't as
well-represented in most installations of TeX as typewriter, but that
should influence only whether each individual writer should use them.  We
aren't writing for TeX compatibility.

The problem I have is the same one: "I" looks like "l".  Granted, Lojban's
use of mostly lowercase will help alleviate that, but we still use "I" for
stressed syllables.  Take the word of a Klingon-language fan, that's a
hassle.  For some reason, Marc Okrand saw fit to use "I" instead of "i",
and use a sans-serif font for the phrase-book at the end of his dictionary,
with the result that people everywhere are using "l" in the wrong places.
Words like "SljlaH" (should be "SIjlaH") have been printed in newspaper
articles about the project, and I've seen people insulted by being told
"blmoHqu'" (and they say _regular_ Klingon is hard to pronounce!).

~mark