Talk:Serif

message: There needs to be an expansion on the origins of serif. The Arch of Titus (81 AD) and Trajan's Column (113 AD) inscriptions are mentioned, but there is no mention of when the 'first' inscriptions happen or what the oldest surviving artefacts are with a serif script. --CavallèroTalk!! 12:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin of serif

message: "Another explanation is that cutting a sharp corner is difficult as any imperfection in the material or carving will be obvious. Further, even minor wear will show. The use of serifs both masks minor imperfections and hides wear."
I'm wondering if anybody has a source for this "other explanation." The wear part has a slight hint of plausibility, but the "difficult" part does not - I've always found it easier to carve a simple sharp corner than to do a serif (which is a more tricky and delicate sharp corner). Of course, I'm no expert stone carver, but I've done half a dozen such projects. Thomas Phinney (talk) 23:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin: sharp corners hard to carve?

message: :Typically serif fonts are used for body text because the serifs tend to guide the eye along the line, while sans serif fonts are used for headings and for small sections of text, because they typically look 'cleaner' to the eye.
Wikipedia uses sans-serif as body text. Ah, anarchy will surely ensue.--ZayZayEM 00:29, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fortunately it hasn't. I think that's mainly because you can set a wikipedia style that does support serif fonts in your user settings.phew Kim Bruning 00:59, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anyone else notice 

message: Why does a search for "sans serif" redirect to this page?  Sans serif fonts have an entirely different classification system than serif fonts, so I think it should be a separate article. Vontafeijos 18:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sans Serif as a separate article 

message: I had once heard that the word serif came from Sereph -- as in angels.  Any truth to this? --Gadren 00:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unlikely. The OED lists serif as 'of obscure origin', but lists ceriph and cerif as earlier spellings. (Note that they all have the /ɪ/ sound after the r, whereas seraph* has /ɘ/.) It says it may have come from Dutch/Flemish schreef, but that there is little or no evidence to back up this claim. Seraphim itself comes directly from the Hebrew. porges 00:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Serephim?

message: Why does this article need the attention of an expert? I'd like to remove this tag if there is no pressing need for it. I certainly don't see one. -Vontafeijos 03:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, other Wikipedia articles are not acceptable sources (WP:CIRCULAR).  Second, the article on bouma also lacks any sources to support the claim. Dricherby (talk) 17:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Expert

message: Hey, the first line is either grammatically wrong, circular or both:
In typography, serifs are the structural details on the end of strokes that make up letters and symbols in serif fonts (or seriffed fonts) has these features.
I do think a first-time vistor will understand what a serif is (mainly by looking at the example image), but this sentence isn't helping...
Should this be: In typography, serifs are structural details on the end of strokes that make up letters and symbols in some fonts, so called serif fonts (or seriffed fonts). A serif font is therefore simply a font having these features.
What do you think? 195.24.29.51 14:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: There citates serif-like things in far east fonts... How about in Arabian fonts? Do they have anything like that? How about our arabian numbers? How do they work in serif/sanserif fonts? anyway the fontmaker wishes? 189.5.150.134 19:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is something like a serif vs sans serif distinction for Arabic fonts, yes. It's more of a calligraphic vs monoline distinction, though. Interestingly, Arabic uses primarily numerals of Indic origin. Not quite clear on what the rest of that question is about, though.  Thomas Phinney (talk) 23:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arab 

message: The explanation of 'diagonal stress' is not clear to me. Can anyone improve upon the existing text?
LorenzoB 23:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old Style 

message: Schreef means wrote in Dutch (past tense of schrijven), but is also a noun, meaning line, border, stroke of the pen, serif related to the verb schrappen (delete, strike through), a much more plausible origin (according to Van Dale Groot Woordenboek, a Dutch authoritive dictionary).
Bruzzel (talk) 17:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schreef 

message: I believe that this sentence (from the end of the first paragraph of the 'etymology' section) is incomplete, but I'm not sure what point the author was trying to make, so I'm not sure how to fix it:
He explained that unlike the types of Bodoni's Callimachus, which were 'ornamented (or rather disfigured) by additions of what I believe type-founders call syrifs or cerefs.'
Jtmorgan (talk) 21:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help with an Incomplete sentence 

message: Can someone please elucidate the differences between these Old Style subtypes? ⇔ ChristTrekker 20:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Venetian vs Aldine/Garalde 

message: It's good that Alex Poole is quoted directly for his literature review of the subject of readability in serif vs. sans serif type. However, Kathleen Tinkel's "Taking it in: What makes type easy to read" is another literature review by an expert in this area that provides some relevant conclusions. Miles Tinker's Legibility of Print also provides some useful information. Finally, Colin Wheildon's studies in 1982–1990, captured in his book, Type and Layout: How Typography and Design Can Get your Message Across – Or Get in the Way, provides conclusions favoring serif fonts. I'm not saying that these are the final word, but they provide expert opinions on this subject as opposed to Alex Poole, who has simply provided a (useful) literature review.
Also, a distinction should be made between legibility and readability. "Legibility" is used quite a bit in this article, without explanation or Wikilinks, and the average reader will simply think that "more legible" means "better" or more readable. In that sense, the material is not that useful for the average reader. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readability 

message: The article says that handwritten text doesn't usually include serifs but that capital-i is an exception, to distinguish it from lowercase-L.  While many sans-serif fonts do indeed have a capital-i that is identical (or very close to) a lowercase-L, are the horizontals of a capital-i really serifs?
Serifs are small horizontal decorations, whereas in typical handwriting (at least, in my experience; but I don't just mean my own handwriting) the horizontals of capital-i's are much more like the horizontal of a captital-T.  No source is given for the statement that hand-written capital-i's are serifed.  To me, they seem to be an alternate letter form, as exhibited by 'a' (hand-written as a loop with a vertical, printed similar to a rotated e) and 'g' (open-tailed from the right in handwriting, often loop-tailed from the left in printing).  So, are they really serifs? Dricherby (talk) 16:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital-i 

message: The readability section is getting clouded with material on legibility. Readability can be measured by a number of factors, including speed of reading. Legibility is how well the differences can be discerned between letters in text. Legibility is not usually discussed in regard to speed of reading body text, for example. These distinctions should be made in the "readability" section. Perhaps the section should be "Readability and legibility." Right now, the section is very confusing to the average reader, I'm sure. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readability vs. Legibility 

message: I think it's odd that there's no mention here of an Cyrillic analogues. Obviously they exist, yet the only Cyrillic Wikipedia (Belorussian) with an interwiki link here only talks (obviously derivatively) about Latin fonts. The Russian Wikipedia doesn't even seem to have heard of the topic. I'm not sure if I should say "serifs in Cyrillic fonts" or "serif-analogues (à la 鱗) in Cyrillic fonts", seems to me that the Japanese/Chinese "uroko" or whatever can just as well be called "serifs" as "serif analogues". Sort of like saying the Japanese don't have fans, or the Chinese don't have boats, just because their fans and boats don't necessarily share history with Western ones. --Haruo (talk) 20:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cyrillic 

message: : The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".
Perhaps in the ancient past, but "sans" has been in the English language since at least Shakespeare (Sans eyes, sans teeth, ...) so perhaps this could be removed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.182.127.150 (talk) 09:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Given how common the word is in ordinary English usage, I'd say it's fair to say the term came from French.  Or is there a rule that a word can't be borrowed twice? —Tamfang (talk) 19:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  French?! 

message: The relation/contrast to "sans-serif" is given, but what about the term "semi-serif"? ⇔ ChristTrekker 15:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've only seen it in the Agfa Rotis series (Serif, Semiserif, Semisans, Sans). —Tamfang (talk) 19:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  semi-serif 

message: This section has inappropriate weight at the start of the article, and duplicates material in the Readability section later. Overall does not add value to the article - I propose deleting this section (potentially some of the refs can be added to later sections). Dave w74 (talk) 13:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, I'm not entirely sure it justifies the word "controversy" either. It seems to be a collection of factoids. Bob talk 18:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Agreed. This section just duplicates information elsewhere, and any additional information would be better if it was integrated into existing related sections. Jowiltshire (talk) 10:40, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove 'controversy' section? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Regarding this sentence in the 'Readability and legibility' section:
 Hinting information, spatial anti-aliasing, and subpixel rendering technologies have partially mitigated the perception of serif fonts on screen.
According to the Wiktionary, to mitigate means to reduce, lessen, or decrease. Aren't the techniques mentioned at the beginning of the sentence meant to do the opposite of mitigating? Or perhaps they were meant to mitigate problems with the perception of such fonts?
In any case, the sentence is not referenced. Should it be deleted?  137.175.150.95 (talk) 13:39, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitigation of perception? 

message: There are various kinds of calligraphic styles used in Devanagari depending upon geographical location within India and depending upon the period (old, modern etc.) - Nakula, Sahadev.
--Jangid (talk) 09:00, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I see differences in stroke weight, but nothing like serifs. —Tamfang (talk) 17:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindi Devanagari? 

message: In Template:Typography, Antiqua is listed as a sub-genre of serif typefaces. I suppose the information about it should be added to this article. Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 04:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added information about Antiqua into the article: Serif#Antiqua Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 05:59, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should information about [[Antiqua (typeface class)]] be added to this article?