alt Hacker NewsThis is fascinating! At the same time, this wikipedia article is of surprisingly low quality, with sentences like
> It is hard to determine how much spacing should be put in between words, but a good typographer is able to determine proper spacing.[3]
> Since the fifteenth century, the best work shows that text is to be read smoothly and efficiently.[4]
> Two other gentlemen have expressed different opinions on what the space between words should be.
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> Two other gentlemen have expressed different opinions on what the space between words should be.
Yeah, that's just weird. Just two, both gentlemen? Is having an opinion about laying out text a chivalrous aristocratic old boy's club? Are there other alternative styles of laying out text that are more "ladylike"? Does this em-dash make me look fat?
I thought it was weirdly written, too. Why is the CSS property that controls it worth mentioning in the opening paragraph, and wtf is "standardized digital typography"?
Exactly the same sentences grated here. It is the subjective passed off as the objective, passed on with a tone of false authority. A surprisingly large majority of public communications fall in to this category. Mastering this puffery, usually for the express purpose of swaying the wills of lesser minds or pressing buttons in funding and grant processes, grants you the reigns of bureaucracy and a career in corporate, public or international relations. A horrible way to waste a life.
I've adjusted or removed those sentences in the article.