Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!decwrl!mejac!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Italic & Oblique
Summary: nothing to do with taxes
Keywords: read my lips
Message-ID: <11571@gryphon.COM>
Date: 3 Feb 89 03:17:41 GMT
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Distribution: na
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 31

In article <324@iconsys.UUCP> bryan@iconsys.UUCP (Bryan Cardoza) writes:
>
>In the common usage of typographers [that I know] (those who design type)
>
>	italic		is a slanted serif face
>	oblique		is a slanted sans serif face

As has been pointed out repeatedly (stone sans italic, lucida italic)
there are sans serif italic fonts which are not just oblique.

As knuth explains in one of his early books, Italics are hundreds
of years old, while oblique faces are less than 100 years old.

And while it is true that more serif fonts have italic versions,
all this means is that more serif fonts have italic varsions.

Translation: the people that you know who design fonts are
not being entirely accurate

>In the common usage of type typesetters [that I know] (those who place type)
>
>	italic		is an originaly crafted slanted face
>	oblique		is a non-slanted face skewed by machine

Sort of right. Although it's not just a case if being ``slanted''. An *italic*,
while it is also slanted, has flourishes which distinguish it from
the same character un-slanted.

-- 
 What I'd really like is a tie-dye T-shirt with a Mercedes symbol on the back.
richard@gryphon.COM   {...}!gryphon!richard   gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov