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My $0.02 (which, today's paper tells me, will soon go the way of the dodo,
to be replaced by a dollar coin)
The "inkwell" hypothesis is not convincing. Why do you suppose the standard
hand lettering used in European books before printing (italic and gothic)
had serifs of sorts? For that matter, Roman inscriptions in stone had
serifs. My guess is that Gutenberg, et al. used serifs because the
letterforms resembled what _they_ were used to reading.
But enough of this thread, don't you think? Other writers on this forum have
shown that readability is a culturally-determined characteristic. We write
for audiences we know (serifophiles or serifophobes) and ought to do what we
know works best. For most of us, that means serif fonts. For those in
certain European countries, apparently, it means sans serif fonts. We should
not ride our hobby horses into the wrong corral.
John -dot- Renish -at- conner -dot- com
My statements are my own and do not represent Conner Peripherals, Inc.
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