Sorry, Roger. All I remember is a joke almost suggesting the opposite
(that doesn't mean you aren't right, only that they were
inconsistent), so I'd love to hear any answers you get to this. I
also wish I could remember where I read the joke--it's in a
Renaissance (English) jestbook and answers the question about why
there are no women secretaries (ho ho, when you consider more recent
times) and the answer depends on a wording that I can't quite
remember but is something to the effect that "who has ever seen that
a woman could write secretary"--but in the original the language
punned on "write" secretary and "be a" secretary. Someday I'll find
that joke. Anyway, that suggested that women preferred Italic because
the poor dears aren't up to secretary hand. Since I think a lot of
women did write secretary hand I find this confusing. True, I can
read Italic but need the likes of you to read secretary.
Many years ago either Joe Loewenstein in his essay about a
printer's aide who absconded with the Italic font moulds (molds?), or
someone even deeper in my past (in RenQ, maybe, or Studies in the
Renaissance) had a nifty bit on a young man in Italy who wrote his
dad in Italic because he knew it would bug him to see the younger
generation using this fancy new script as well as reading these fancy
new Greek imports from the East. Maybe it was fashionable because it
was recently foreign and so way totally unlike the Gothic times of
one's great-grandparents?
I will find that joke. Anne.
On Jan 12, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Roger Kuin wrote:
> (apologies for cross-posting)
>
> Dear Sidspens,
>
> I remember hearing a conference paper a number of years ago in LA
> that claimed that in 16C England the italic hand was considered
> more difficult to write than secretary hand, and that in part for
> that reason it had prestige. Does anyone have a source or a
> corroboration for this idea?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Roger Kuin
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