On Thu, 14 May 2020 at 09:07:12, Sid Nuncius
Post by Sid NunciusPost by Vicky AyechI'm re-reading DL Sayers Murder Must Advertise after many years and
just read fount being used for font. Did it change at some point or
was it used in old-fashioned printing but changed in IT?
Meaning typeface, as in "They had set the headlines in the wrong fount"
(p.47)?
According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, this was/is the British
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fount
Presumably with the ubiquity of Windows and other US IT comanies, the
US spelling has become almost universally adopted.
I agree - to the extent that fount actually now sounds wrong to me, even
though I know the old usage. (And that font is also the [usually] stone
vessel in which [usually] babies are launched.)
Post by Sid NunciusWhile we're on the subject, may I just fulminate briefly about "fount
of all knowledge" now being almost universally misquoted as "font of
all knowledge"?
Thank you.
I agree, I'd expect that expression to use fount. Though thinking about
it, what does it actually mean? It's pretty obvious from the context
it's usually used in, that it means source; so what is the word - a
poetic abbreviation of fountain? (I usually object to that sort of
poeticism [same as things like "crack'd"], as highly presumptuous for no
reason; however, not knowing the actual origin of the expression, I
don't know if it comes from a time when maybe the -ain part wasn't used,
so I withhold my disdain.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
Veni, Vidi, VO5 (I came, I saw, I washed my hair) - Mik from S+AS Limited
(***@saslimited.demon.co.uk), 1998