From I love typography, an utterly awesome post about the origins of the alphabet. If you were ever curious about how we got from cuneiform to Copperplate, here's your chance to find out. It's fascinating how the English alphabet's evolved through the centuries, from losing letters like ð (eth) and ƿ (wynn), to adding z to replace g, of all letters. Well, fascinating to me, anyway. And while I'm on the subject of now-defunct letters: 'ye,' as in 'ye olde tavern,' is not pronounced 'yee.' It's the indefinite article 'the,' which used to be spelled þe -- (thorn, 'th' + e). Over time, that turned into a ligature, . Seeing signs for 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe' drives me nuts, because 'ye' (pronounced 'yee') should only be the plural of 'thou,' as in, 'Ye gods.'

Can you tell I did a stint as a copy editor?

Speaking of letters, the Fontifier service lets you turn your handwriting into a font. The kerning's a bit off, but for $9, it's a damn good deal.

I suppose you have to be a special sort of geek to find this sort of thing interesting. When I was a kid, I had a dictionary with all kinds of great articles at the front of the book; one was very similar to this, and told the history of the English language, complete with illustrations. I've spent the better part of the last hour looking for this book online, but it's tough, when all I remember was that the cover was pale yellow, with burgundy type. I could pick it out of a pile instantly, but by name? Not so much. Does anyone else remember this book?