Curiosity

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, was originally meant to have a cat (felis catus) on board. Initially, the idea was just a joke made by an anonymous board member, but no one seemed to get the irony. It was only when scientists told the administrator, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., that a cat would have “a Laika's chance in space” of surviving such a trip, that the idea was put to rest. A very fortunate turn of events for Mr. Snuggles, who had already been picked out.

The interesting part (and the reason it has relevance to typoguistics) is that these scientists were not in fact astronomers but linguists, and had based their findings on a common saying. “And even if this is not an exact science,” said one of the scientists “we can't risk it for the sake of NASA's reputation.”

Typoguistics

Ty·po·gui·stics (pronounced [ˌtʰɑɪ̯poʊ̯ˈɡwɪstɪks] or [ˌtʰɑɪ̯ˈpɔɡwɪstɪks]) is an interdisciplinary field of study, which combines typography and linguistics. The term was coined by Christian Munk (me), who has for a long time been interested in both fields and their interaction. Related studies include applied linguistics, semiotics, visual communication and possibly more.

It is also the name of this blog on the very subject of typoguistics. It is a blog written in a jokingly encyclopædic fashion, and based on equal amounts of science, design and sarcasm . It will seek to improve the way people read and write by informing the public about typography – for example which unicode-characters one should not confuse, e.g. ⟨ø⟩ and ⟨⌀⟩, or when to use an em-dash; encouraging radical solutions – such as the irony mark ⟨؟⟩; analysing real world signage; and suggesting new characters. There will also be plenty of illustrations, IPA and cartoons to back my claims.

All in all, a smorgesbord of language and type.