ISTORMI IDRAINI
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François Lang spotted this storm drain manhole cover in Bethesda MD, and thought the unintentional humor might amuse Language Log. Yet another example of why sans serif fonts are evil, even though they can generate some merriment.
For advanced fontmakers: how do we know that the foundry typographer was aware of the problem?
Selected readings
- "Serif or sans serif?" (3/19/23)
- Why kerning matters" (Wug Life, 12/25/13)
- "Choose your font carefully) (8/22/22)
Jacob said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:16 pm
Because the “real” I is thinner!
The fact that the O and A aren’t centered bugs me most of all. Centering is hard /- do you center the word or the middle character? Usually the word but in this case I would have gone for a constant width font and sidestepped the issue.
martin schwartz said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:36 pm
At first I thought ISTORMI IDRAINI was in a language with i-prothesis
before clusters, -i from foeign -c nouns (as in Modern Greek),
and perhaps even a garbling of ISTORMI *DRAINIELS,
but no.
MS
Victor Mair said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:37 pm
Good point, Jacob. Both of these words have 5 letters, but the letters are not of equal width.
Hmmm…. You're right about the O and A not lining up looking a bit odd.
Marshall said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:40 pm
And yet – it looks like the 'M' and the 'N' (and the 'S' and the 'D', for that matter) are the same width.
RfP said,
February 16, 2025 @ 8:58 pm
The “misalignment” might actually have been intended as a way to enhance readability. If the letters had lined up more closely with the verticals of the grid, they would tend to blend in more, making them more difficult to parse.
Victor Mair said,
February 16, 2025 @ 9:26 pm
@martin schwartz:
I thought the same thing as you about the i-prosthesis before clusters at first too.
Michael Vnuk said,
February 16, 2025 @ 10:09 pm
Nice find!
The character (|) that looks like a vertical line (and is, among other things, called 'vertical line' or 'vertical bar', and often shows up on keyboards as a broken bar, although a vertical line will be printed or displayed) is now commonly used as a separator, eg in headings and in horizontal lists. Depending on the font, the surrounding text and how carefully I am reading, I sometimes confuse the vertical line with an uppercase I or a lowercase L or the number 1, and I have to reread the text to understand it.
martin schwartz said,
February 16, 2025 @ 11:10 pm
The main, very long, text reached me encrypted; dunno what all it says.
Twas only when I clicked on the notice of further material that
I saw the image. Hmm, some sewer-covers in parvo could serve
as nice obverses of coins.
Martin Schwartz
martin schwartz said,
February 16, 2025 @ 11:16 pm
Just saw online article "… art imitates life of manhole covers".
Martin Schwartz
Keith Clarke said,
February 17, 2025 @ 2:58 am
Coincidentally I just read this wonderful essay regarding an "engraving font" known as Gorton. It's not a perfect match; Gorton has rounded ends on the letters and this is all squared-off. But I guess these manhole covers are cast in moulds, and the moulds would be made using a router (hence monoline).
https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
(hat tip to Daring Fireball)
Philip Taylor said,
February 17, 2025 @ 10:32 am
Michael V. — "The character (|) that looks like a vertical line (and is, among other things, called 'vertical line' or 'vertical bar', and often shows up on keyboards as a broken bar, although a vertical line will be printed or displayed)" — I've just checked three quite different keyboards (my normal IBM "clicky" keyboard, model 139406, a Dell keyboard and a Fujitsu keyboard), and all three offer both an unbroken vertical solidus and the broken solidus to which you refer. Asking "What Unicode character is this" to analyse both, I am told :
DJL said,
February 17, 2025 @ 10:53 am
Bad design, for sure. According to my designer wife, the issue is that there's a pattern of vertical and horizontal lines on each line and they have tried to fit the text around this pattern – notice that the vertical lines on either side of the text align with the horizontal lines above and below these vertical lines. What they should have done instead is forget about the pattern in the middle section and leave this space for the text only (i.e., they should have not included the vertical lines on either side of the text).
Theodore said,
February 17, 2025 @ 2:32 pm
I have specified foundry products like this in the past, and manufacturers typically have a standard mo[u]ld with just the traction grid and blank spaces for different text (SANITARY, WATER, ELECTRIC, etc.). The person who designed the grid was likely not the one who set the type.
Michael Vnuk said,
February 17, 2025 @ 4:39 pm
Philip Taylor – Wikipedia at ‘Vertical bar’ says:
‘Many keyboards with US, US-International, and German QWERTZ layout display the broken bar on a keycap even though the solid vertical bar character is produced.’ This is a legacy of keyboards manufactured during the 1980s and 1990s for IBM PC compatible computers, as the IBM PC continued to display the glyph for the broken bar at codepoint 7C on displays from MDA (1981) to VGA (1987) despite the changes made to ASCII in 1977. The UK/Ireland keyboard has both symbols engraved: the broken bar is given as an alternate graphic on the "grave" (backtick) key; the solid bar is on the backslash key.’
My keyboard (an HP one over 10 years old, which I got secondhand here in Australia) only has a broken bar, but pressing this produces an unbroken vertical line (which had occasionally puzzled me, but I thought it was just a quirk of the displayed typeface.)
I used information from Wikipedia and my keyboard to frame my comment, but I did not clarify that if both symbols are on keyboards (as in your case), each renders correctly. (However, I am unable to quickly confirm if all typefaces differentiate the two symbols.)
Wikipedia has additional history and explanation about character sets and keyboards for these two symbols.
Philip Taylor said,
February 17, 2025 @ 5:02 pm
"if both symbols are on keyboards (as in your case), each renders correctly" — sadly untrue here, Michael. Top-left is engraved as solid, lower left as broken — going directly to the Babelstone "What Unicode …" page and pressing each in turn (top-left first, then lower-left) displays ¦ (U+00A6 : BROKEN BAR) followed by | (U+007C : VERTICAL LINE ), the diametric opposite of the order in which I entered the two. UNIV: Windows 11 Enterprise 23H2, Locale: English (United Kingdom), IBM 139406 (UK) keyboard. Very sad.
Michael Vnuk said,
February 17, 2025 @ 8:03 pm
Yes, Philip. Definitely sad. And weird.