Shady Characters – The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, & Other Typographical Marks

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More than a mere catalog of curious trivia, it’s an absolutely fascinating blend of history, design, sociology, and cultural poetics — highly recommended. I went into this novel with a open mind, meaning I wasn’t sure what to expect and didn’t come bearing any preconceived notions. May have some underlining and highlighting of text and some writing in the margins, but there are no missing pages or anything else that would compromise the readability or legibility of the text.

Well, readability (comprehension was not tested) would certainly drop when these factors are involved. The physiological aspect probably has to do with the regularized eye movement in fully justified text vs. When everything was written down there was little to no uniformity in terms of symbols and their meanings. This seventeenth-century German polymath was allegedly so unpopular that his funeral was attended only by his secretary. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy.As you might expect, Shady Characters has images scattered across the text, all with helpful, manicule directed, captions underneath! This book does not read fast--it is dry in places but for the most part is interesting and even humorous.

The beginning of the book actually has a part that explains who each character is and their animal “form.Oh, but the permutations that aggravating mark endured before reaching the form favored by those nuns of my training! Throughout the book we meet the people who developed these devices that make reading so much easier but make writing a bit more difficult with its rules.