Font

Font (pronounced font)

(1) In Christianity, a receptacle, usually of stone, as in a baptistery or church, containing the holy water used in baptism (now usually as "fount").

(2) A receptacle for holy water; a stoup (now usually as "fount") .

(3) A productive source (often in the form “a fount of wisdom”).

(4) The reservoir for the oil in a lamp, ink for a pen etc (now usually as "fount").

(5) Figuratively, a spring or fountain; a wellspring (archaic but still appears in poetic & literary use as both "font" & "fount").

(6) In the slang of television production, to overlay text onto the picture.

(7) In typography, a set of glyphs of unified design, belonging to one typeface, style & weight and usually representing the letters of an alphabet, supplementary characters, punctuation marks and the ten standard numerals.

(8) In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film they are stored on.

(9) In digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it.

(10) In computing, a file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a display or printer.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English font, from the Old English font & fant, from the Latin font-, the stem of the Church Latin fons baptismalis (baptismal font, spring, fountain) from the Classical Latin fōns (genitive fontis) (fountain).  The use in printing to describe typefaces dates from the 1570s and was from the Old & Middle French fonte (a founding, casting), the feminine past participle of the verb fondre (to melt), from the unattested Vulgar Latin funditus (a pouring, molding, casting), a verbal noun from the Latin fundere (past participle fusus) (to pour a melted substance) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root gheu- (to pour).  The meaning was acquired because all the characters in a set were cast at the same time.  Most people use the words font and typeface as synonyms but industry professionals maintain a distinction: the typeface is the set of characters of the same design; the font is the physical means of producing them; that difference was maintained even as printing moved from physical wood & metal to electronics.  The modern practice is for the spelling “font” to apply to use in printing while “fount” is use for receptacles containing liquids.  That must seem strange to those learning the language but it’s how things evolved.  Font is a noun & verb, fonted is a verb & adjective, fonting is a verb and fontal is an adjective; the noun plural is fonts.

The politics of fonts

Great moments in fonts: Always select your font with care.

Dr Stephen Banham (b 1968) is a senior lecturer in typography at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia who has published widely on the subject.  He recently discussed the politics of fonts and offered a number of examples of how fonts have played some significant role in recent history.  He noted the way in which some developments in typefaces have been technologically deterministic, something related not only to the changes in the mechanical devices used in printing (such as the shift from wooden to metal type) but also the speed at which people travelled while reading.  When the development of railways meant people began regularly to travel at speeds beyond that which teams of horses could attain, it meant there was signage which had to be legible to those passing on the train and this was not always simply a matter of scaling-up the existing styles; sometimes new designs were needed with different aspect ratios.

Fonts in transition: Nazi Party poster advertising a “Freedoms Rally” (the irony not apparent at the time), Schneidemuhl, Germany, (now Pila, Poland) in 1931 (left), Edict issued by Martin Bormann (1900–1945) banning the future use of Judenlettern (Jewish fonts) like Fraktur (the irony of the letterhead being in the now banned typeface presumably didn’t disturb the author) (centre) and (in modern Roman script), an announcement in occupied that 100 Polish hostages had been executed as a reprisal for death of two Germans in Warsaw, 1944 (right).

Sometimes too, the message was the typeface itself; it imparted values that were separate from the specific meaning in the text.  The Nazi regime (1933-1945) in Germany was always conscious of spectacle and although in matters of such as architecture customs there was a surprising tolerance of regional difference, in some things it demanded uniformity and one of those was the appearance of official documents.  Early in his rule their rule, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader), German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) decreed that “German Black Letter” should be used for all official purposes (and it was used in the cover art of most early editions of Mein Kampf); Hitler, who to the end thought himself an “artist”, liked the heavy, angular form for its encapsulation of the Germanic.  Fraktur is probably the best known of these although it’s but one of a number of variations of the typeface and such was the extend of the state support for the font that the party was critical of newspapers, publishers & magazines which used more modern (and easier to read) forms (and they were used by the German military and civil service when legibility was important), a frequent criticism being the “Roman characters” somehow represented a “Jewish influence”.  In one of the ironies of history however, when it became apparent that when used in letters and notices distributed to enforce rule in the occupied territories the use of the font was counter-productive because it was so hard to read, the Nazis suddenly declared that Fraktur had become contaminated wand was thus proscribed as Judenlettern (Jewish letters), official documents thereafter rendered in modern Roman type.  Martin Bormann's edict was issued thus:

I announce the following, by order of the Führer:

It is false to regard the so-called Gothic typeface as a German typeface. In reality, the so-called Gothic typeface consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as they later came to own the newspapers, the Jews living in Germany also owned the printing presses… and thus came about the common use in Germany of Schwabacher-Jewish letters.

Today the Führer… decided that Antiqua type is to be regarded as the standard typeface. Over time, all printed matter should be converted to this standard typeface. This will occur as soon as possible in regard to school textbooks, only the standard script will be taught in village and primary schools. The use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease. Certificates of appointment for officials, street signs and the like will in future only be produced in standard lettering…

In the post war years, fonts (the word had come by them to be used generically of typefaces except by printers) reflected the mood of the times and in the unexpectedly buoyant years of the 1950s there emerged in West Germany (the FRG) “Optima”, (1958) intended to convey the optimism engendered by the Wirtschaftswunder (the economic miracle) while in France, “Univers” (1957), the product of a Swiss designer, was in a similar vein and intended to be suitable for all purposes in all languages.  Doubtlessly though, no font compares with the Swiss "Helvetica" (1957) which, by virtue of its elegance, simplicity & adaptability, quickly enjoyed a popularity which endures to this day and it remains the only font which has been the subject of a full-length feature film.  It spawned a number of imitators, especially after it was included in Adobe’s PostScript set, the best known of which is probably the ubiquitous Arial (1982).  The optimism of the 1950s is long gone although Optima remains available and names still reflect something of the concerns of their era: “Exocet” (1981), “Stealth” (1983) and “Patriot” (1986) all part of the late Cold War Zeitgeist.  Fonts can also reflect environment concerns and there are now some which no longer use solid forms, instead being made of lines, thereby reducing the consumption of ink or toner by up to 12%.  The trick isn’t detectable by the naked eye and is actually not new, “outline” typefaces long available although in those the technique was designed to be apparent and there were limitations in their application; below a certain size they tended to fragment.

More great moments in fonts.

During the Covid-19 pandemic when we were all spend much time in a form of house arrest, the font download sites all noted a spike in demand for script-like fonts, especially those which most resembled handwriting (and it is possible to have one’s own handwriting rendered as a font), the demand presumed to be induced by a longing for a way to express feelings in a more “human” way than the default serif and san serif sets which ship with email and messenger services.  That over arching binary (serif & san serif) has also attracted criticism because humanity’s most obvious binary (male & female) in now under siege as a form of oppression so binaries in general seem no longer fashionable.  With fonts, the most obvious micro-aggression is the way fonts are often categorized as “masculine” (Arial; Verdana etc) and “feminine” (Brush Script; Comic Sans (maybe in fuchsia) etc) and though the relevant characteristics can’t exactly be defined (except for the fuchsia), the differences probably can be recognized although that of course is a product of the prejudices and suppositions of the observer.  Presumably, if offered a third category (gender-neutral), a sample group would put some fonts in there but even that would seem based on the prejudices and suppositions constructed by the original binary.  The mechanics (as opposed to the content) of typology is one of the less expected theatres of the culture wars.

Verzoening, Geffen, the Netherlands.

The simultaneously derided yet still popular font Comic Sans (1984) has been more controversial than most.  The design was intended to recall the sort of writing which appeared in the speech bubbles of cartoons and it first came to wide public attention in 1995 when it was used in Microsoft Bob, the software which was an attempt to use a cartoon-like interface to make navigating Windows 95 easier for neophytes.  Even less popular than Windows Me, Windows Vista or DOS 4.0, Bob was allowed quietly to die but Comic Sans survived and found a niche, much to the disgust of some in major corporations who banned its use, demanding the staff use only “dignified” or “serious” (presumably masculine) fonts rather than something from a comic book.  Unfortunately, this news appeared not to reach whoever it was in the Netherlands who in 2012 approved the use of Comic Sans on the World War II memorial Verzoening (Reconciliation) erected in the town of Geffen.  That attracted much criticism but not as much as the decision to have the names of Jewish, Allied and German military deaths all to be etched (in Comic Sans) on the same stone.  After it was pointed out that reconciliation with the SS was not a national sentiment, the offending names were removed although for the rest, Comic Sans remained, albeit modified by the stonemasons so the text was rendered thicker, the local authorities justifying the retention on the grounds the shape of the text was in accord with the stone (it’s difficult to see the connection) and easily legible at a distance (certainly true).  It may be the only monument in the world, dedicated to the dead, which uses Comic Sans.

Crooked Hillary Clinton updating her Burn Book which, during the primary campaign for the Democrat Party nomination for the 2016 presidential election, probably would have been referred to internally as her "Bern Book" because it would have been so filled with tactics designed to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders (b 1941; senior US senator (Independent, Vermont) since 2007) (digitally altered image).  In Mean Girls (2004), the Burn Book's cover used the "ransom note" technique which involved physically cutting letters from newspapers & magazines and pasting them onto a page, a trick of the pre-DNA analysis age which left no identifiable handwriting.  There are a number of "ransom" fonts which emulate the appearance in software.

Politicians do maintain burn books although few are much discussed.  Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) "enemies list" became famous in 1973 when it emerged during congressional hearings enquiring into the Watergate break-in and that such a list existed surprised few although some did expect it to contain more names than the twenty included; it was common knowledge Nixon had many more enemies than that.  That view was vindicated when later lists were revealed (some containing hundreds of names) though had the net been cast a little wider, it could well have run to thousands.  At least one Eurocrat has also admitted to keeping a burn book although Jean-Claude Juncker (b 1954; president of the European Commission 2014-2019) calls his "little black book" Le Petit Maurice (little Maurice), the name apparently a reference to a contemporary from his school days who grew taller than the youthful Jean-Claude and seldom neglected to mention it.  Although maintained for some thirty years (including the eighteen spent as prime-minister of Luxembourg) to record the identities of those who crossed him, Mr Junker noted with some satisfaction it wasn't all that full because people “rarely betray me”, adding “I am not vengeful, but I have a good memory.”   It seems his warning “Be careful.  Little Maurice is waiting for you” was sufficient to ward of the betrayal and low skulduggery for which the corridors of EU institutions are renowned.

Fount

Fount (pronounced phont)

(1) A spring of water; fountain (now mostly poetic use).

(2) A receptacle in church for holy water.

(3) A receptacle for oil in a lamp.

(4) In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size.

(5) In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film on which they are stored; in digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it.

(6) In computing, a file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a computer display or printer (now always with the spelling font).

(7) A source or origin; often used in a mystical sense such as a “fount of wisdom”.

1250-1300: A back formation (as a shortened form) from fountain, from the Old English font, a borrowing from the From Middle French fonte, feminine past participle of verb fondre (to melt), from the Latin fons (fountain)  It came from a primitive Indo-European root cognate with the Sanskrit धन्वति (dhanvati) (flows, runs), possibly dhenhz- (to flow).  The Old French fonte (a founding, casting), came apparently from the (unattested) Vulgar Latin funditus (a casting), from the Latin fundere (to melt). Fount is a noun; the noun plural is founts.

Fount:  Baptism Fount, Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

The two meanings are unrelated.  The sense of font (and fount) as a "complete set of characters of a particular face and size of printing type" dates from the 1680s and such things have been referred to from the 1570s as a "casting" (now more commonly as "typeface".  The meaning in mechanical printing became attached because of the link with the Middle French fonte (a casting), noun use of feminine past participle of fondre (to melt) from the fundere (past participle fusus) (to melt; cast; pour out) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root gheu- (to pour).  The fount became so-called because all the letters in a given set were cast at the same time; fonte is also the root of foundry (the places where metal for the typefaces was melted) and, because of the melting cheese: fondue.  In modern use, the preferred convention is for font to be used when referring to digital typefaces and fount for metal and other older systems of typesetting.  Fount should be used for all other senses although many US dictionaries do suggest font may be used for all purposes.

Font: One font even has a biography.

While the long-running operating system (OS) wars and the bus wars of the 1980s & 1990s were landmark events in the digital revolution and followed with great interest by nerds, they were barely noticed by most consumers.  By contrast, the font wars of the early 1990s were little more than brief skirmishes but their implications proved immeasurably greater for most users.  In the 1980s, for all but a handful of computer users, the font used was almost always whatever was an application’s default and most wouldn’t have known its name, features like “italics” or “bold” sometimes possible but usually key-stroke intensive selectively to apply.  The sub-set using graphical interfaces such as Apple’s Macintosh (1984; it didn’t become the “Mac” until 1999) and the fondly-remembered Amiga Workbench (1985) enjoyed a wider range and more control but even then what a font looked like on a screen and how it appeared when printed didn’t always align and for those who needed professional-standard output, high-quality fonts were expensive.  For most, even if there were fonts available, there were many limitations including frequent limitations on the number which could be included in a single document.

The industry standard then was Adobe’s PostScript but that nice, profitable niche was upended when Apple and Microsoft cross-licensed their technologies, the breakthrough being the bundling of a number of TrueType fonts (emulating some publishing stalwarts) with Windows 3.1, released to general availability in March 1992.  Not best pleased, Adobe’s CEO called a press conference at which tearfully he announced Adobe’s Type 1 format was now in the public domain; now not best pleased were those many customers who’d recently paid Adobe’s high prices.  Adobe also circulated a document explaining why PostScript was better than TrueType, something with which analysts agreed but the almost all also agreed it was the latter to which consumers would flock.  They were right and within weeks the bulletin boards were offering dozens of TrueType character sets, some derivative, some fanciful and many exactly what the market wanted.  There are now thousands of TrueType fonts.

During her campaign (which she actually won!) for the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential election, crooked Hillary Clinton's Burn Book probably would have been referred to internally as her "Bern Book" because it would have been so filled with tactics designed to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders (b 1941; US senator (Independent, Vermont) since 2007) (digitally altered image).  In Mean Girls (2004), the Burn Book's cover used the "ransom note" technique which involved physically cutting letters from newspapers & magazines and pasting them onto a page, a trick of the pre-DNA analysis age which left no identifiable handwriting.  There are a number of "ransom" fonts which emulate the appearance in software.

Apestail

Apestail (pronounced eypse–teyl)

A name for the symbol “@”, adapted from its Dutch name.

1990s: An adaptation of the Dutch word aapestaartje (literally “little monkey's tail”, coined as a jocular term for the @ symbol, the etymology reflecting the symbol's spiral or curled shape, said to resemble the tail of a monkey, the construct being aap (monkey) + staart (tail) + -je (indicating something small or endearing).  Unlike German, the Dutch language has a tradition of humorous descriptive terms although the Germans did retaliate with Klammeraffe (spider monkey.  Other forms have included the Italian chiocciola (snail), the Polish małpa (monkey) and the Hebrew shtrudel (strudel pastry).  An English alternative was ampersat, the construct being ampersa(nd) + at.  Apestail is a noun; the noun plural is apestails.

Apestail in the Algerian font.

One of the curious linguistic paradoxes produced by the internet is that the “@” symbol, although one of the most widely used of those on the standard keyboard, it has never gained a universally accepted “official” name (such as “ampersand” for the “&”).  In English, when referred to it’s usually as “at”.  It was of course its adoption as the divider between the user name and the domain (UserName@domain.x) in email addresses which meant the once neglected key on the keyboard became widely used and although the rise of SMS (short message service), social media platforms, instant messaging services and such has meant there are now many alternatives for electronic communications, so entrenched in corporate life is the email protocol that it’s estimated that every day in 2024, over 350 billion emails are sent, an increase of some 4% from the previous year.  That does make modern capitalism sound industrious but the same researchers also reckoned some 85% of the volume was spam.  As early as the 1960s there had been forms of electronic messaging but all were parochial and it wasn’t until 1971 when programmer Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) included the @ symbol in ARPANET’s (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network; the operation which created the underpinnings of what became the modern internet) implementation and although much has changed in terms of packets and protocols, the @ endures.  From the very start, it was understood to mean “at” thus lindsaylohan@disney.com would universally be understood to mean “Lindsay Lohan at Disney Corporation”.  There was a element of chance in the choice, Mr Tomlinson selecting @ because it was one of the least used ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters and one thus unlikely to conflict with objects elsewhere in code or operating system routines.

Apestail in the Agency FB font.

So the basic syntax of the email address predated the development of the familiar PC or laptop keyboard but in that context it was of very little use because it wouldn’t be until well into the 1990s that email achieved a critical mass of users.  Despite that, from the very first, the @ appeared on most keyboards and that was because substantially they emulated the layout of those which had become familiar on typewriters.  Probably few typewriter users had much need for the symbol either but for those who did it was essential and its long history in typography and commercial transactions justified a key although often it wasn’t included on smaller, cheaper typewriters aimed at the consumer market and even in the computer industry, it wasn’t until @ was included in the ASCII character set that computer keyboards were (more or less) standardized.  In commerce, by the sixteenth century “2” widely was used by merchants to signify a rate or price, such as “7 jars of olives @ 5 drachmas” was understood as 7 x 5 =35 so it was 35 drachmas for 7 jars of olives.  Like the Arabic numeric system, the commercial use spread across Europe and became a standard notation, facilitating a certainty of trading terms between those who shared neither a language now spoke the lingua franca.  Because of its importance and utility in bookkeeping and commerce, it was included on keyboards for the convenience of businesses.  Occasionally, @ would appear in specific academic or technical applications but these instances were rare, localized and none seem to have endured although, for all we know, it may have some secret meaning in Freemasonry.  Some jurisdictions have banned the use of “@” and an element when registering the name of an infant, the implication of that being that some parents must have tried.

Apestail in the Berlin Sans font.

The first time many computer users became aware of the mysterious @ was when it was included as the prefix for built-in functions in the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the so-called “killer app” which in 1983 did so much to legitimize the personal computer in corporate life.  Released in 1979, VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet but it was the more capable Lotus 1-2-3 (soon laden with macros and add-ins) which captured the market and anyone familiar with VisiCalc would have found the transition relatively simple: whereas in VisiCalc SUM(B1:B10) would have calculated the sum of the range A1 to A10, in 1-2-3 it was @SUM(A1..A10). and statements like @IF(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false) were used for conditional logic.  The arrival of Microsoft Windows 3.x in 1990 and especially Windows 95 in 1995 shifted the universe and over time Excel captured the spreadsheet market and while it moved away from the use of @ as a universal function prefix, it does still exist in aome of Excel’s advanced functions such as structured references in arrays.  In many computer languages, @ is used for a variety of purposes.

Apestail in the Niagara Solid font.

The very origin of @ is murky but it seems to have appeared during the later medieval period when it was known in Spanish and Portuguese as arroba, from the Old Spanish arroua and the Old Galician-Portuguese arrova, from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic اَلرُّبْع (ar-rubʕ) (one-fourth), the reference to it making up one fourth of a quintal (the capacity of a standard amphora, a vessel used to store and transport liquids, cereals and other goods) The symbol was used as a shorthand form of the Latin ad (at; to) and one of a range of truncated or stylized forms which saved (1) the time of scribes, (2) ink and (3) paper, all commodities which cost money and some were expensive.  In countries where Spanish and Portuguese were spoken, arroba also referred to a measure of weight, typically around 11.5 kg (25 lb) although regional variations were common.  In that sense, by the operation of local custom, @ was a (regionally) standardized measure like a pood but unlike the pood, it never spread.

Elite

Elite (pronounced ay-leet (U) or e-leet (non-U))

(1) The choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons (often used with a plural verb).

(2) Historically, persons of the highest class (used with a plural verb).  Once associated mostly with high birth or social position (the aristocratic or patrician), it’s now a much applied and contested concept.

(3) A group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group.

(4) A typeface, approximately 10-point in printing-type size, widely used in typewriters and having 12 characters to the inch and now included in many digital font sets.

(5) Representing the most choice or select; best; of, relating to, or suitable for an elite; exclusive

1350–1400: From the Middle English (in the sense of "a person elected to office"), from the Middle French e(s)lit (chosen), feminine past participle of e(s)lisre & e(s)lire (to choose), from the Latin ēligere (to elect), the past participle electus; the source of the modern elect, election & related forms.  Variations are created as required such as anti-elite, global-elite, non-elite, power-elite & super-elite.  Words in a similar sense include exclusive, silk-stocking, aristocracy, celebrity, establishment, society, choice, cool, crack, elect, noble, pick, super, top, best, cream & gentility.  The alternative spelling is the French élite and use of the French pronunciation the "U" ay-leet rather than the "non-U" e-leet is one of the "class-identifiers" on which readers of publications like Country Life focus when meeting folk.

Use in English became more frequent after 1823 in the sense of "a choice or select body, the best part".  Earlier, in fourteenth century Middle English it had been borrowed from French with the meaning "chosen person" (and was used much in ecclesiastical documents to describe a bishop-elect) but had died out by the middle of the next century.  Elite was re-introduced to general use when it appeared by in Lord Byron's (1788-1824) epic poem Don Juan (1819-1824); it caught on and was by 1852 an adjective.  The noun elitism (advocacy of or preference for rule or social domination by an elite element in a system or society; attitude or behavior of persons who are or deem themselves among the elite) dates from 1951 and is an early example of the development of the language of critical theory which emerged, encouraged by the vast increase in the social sciences in the expanded universities of the post-war years.

IBM 12 Point Pitch 96 character "Golf Ball" Prestige Elite font for Selectric III Typewriter.

Introduced in 1961, the IBM Selectric (a portmanteau of select(ive) + (elect)ric)) was a landmark of modern industrial design and the last major advance in desktop document production before the word processor.  Built to the high standard for which IBM was once renowned, it allowed users to change font sets within seconds, simply by swapping the "element" which everybody except IBM staff (always in blue suits and white shirts) called "golf balls".  At the time the concept of a swappable character set was actually decades old and systems using flat, rotating "wheels" were the usual alternative approach but the Selectric did it best and in the 1960s there was still a enticing allure to the IBM name.  The most popular of the early fonts were Elite, Gothic & Courier (all available in several variations.  The first Elite typeface was released in 1920 and used by both typewriters and hot metal typesetting.  Prestige Elite (usually referred to as “Prestige” or “Elite”), was a monospaced typeface, created in 1953 for IBM and among the most popular of those available for the Selectric.  Optimized for the particular technology of the typewriter, Prestige Elite was characterized by the large x-height and moderate stroke thickness suitable for ribbon-based impact printing.  Unlike the similar Courier, the Elite sets did not transition to the digital age although TrueType, PostScript and other formats of variations of Elite are commercially available.

The rise in use of the adjective elitist (advocating or preferring rule or social domination by an elite element in a system or society; deeming oneself to be among the elite) is noted from the same era, the original adjectival examples including Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), and Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881).  The nous use quickly followed although some dictionaries insist it’s not attested until 1961.  The concept attracted much attention from sociologists exploring structures of power and the relationships between them, much discussed in Michael Young’s (1915-2002) The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) although, while intended as a critique of a society increasingly divided between a skilled power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less qualified, meritocracy, to the author’s disquiet, meritocracy (and meritocratic) evolved into a word with at least neutral and often positive connotations.

Shoes for elite feet: Lindsay Lohan in Isabel Marant Poppy Elite Suede Pumps in beige, New York City, August 2015.  Jeans for the elite now can affect the look of the tatterdemalion ("distressed" the industry term) which once was a mark of the clothing of the poor but they should include a label confirming their US$800 + cost, a particular art of "implied price-taggery". 

Charles Wright Mills (1916–1962 and usually styled C Wright Mills) was an American sociologist who published the much criticized but also influential The Power Elite (1956) which appears to have introduced the term to political criticism.  Mills took a structuralist approach and explored the clusters of elites and how their relationships and interactions works to enable them to exert (whether overtly or organically) an essentially dictatorial control over US society and its economy.  Mills, while acknowledging some overlap between the groups, identified six clusters of elites: (1) those who ran the large corporations, (2) those who owned the corporations, (3) popular culture celebrities including the news media, (4) the upper-strata of wealth-owning families, (5) the military establishment (centred on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff) and (6), the upper echelons of government (the executives, the legislatures the judges, the senior bureaucracy and the duopoly of the two established political parties.  The overlaps he noted did not in any way diminish the value of his description, instead illustrating its operation.

Although criticized as being more a left-wing polemic than conventional academic research (something from which Mills really didn’t demur), The Power Elite aged well and influenced many, the famous caution President Eisenhower (1890–1969; president of the US 1953-1961) issued in his valedictory address warning of the “military-industrial complex” was quite Millsian and a helpful contribution to the library of structuralism.  Generations of sociologists and others would develop his idea of the new and shifting construct of a ruling class and culture.  In recent years, elite has become a term used (usually between elites) as an accusation; elite populists finding their base responsive to the label being applied to those of whom they're anyway most suspicious: journalists, scientists, academics etc. 

The Lotus Elite

1959 Lotus Elite S1.

The design of the Lotus Elite (Type 14, 1957-1963) was a catalogue of innovation, some of which would have an immediate effect on the industry though some would proved too difficult to implement in mass-production and, except for the most expensive, impossible profitably to pursue on a smaller scale.  Most distinctive was a technique borrowed from aviation, the stressed-skin glass-fibre unibody which obviated entirely the need for a chassis or space-frame, the body an integrated, load-bearing structure.  The only substantial steel components were a sub-frame supporting the engine and front suspension and a hoop to which was attached the windscreen, door hinges and jacking points.  In an indication of how much things have changed, the hoop was the extent of passenger protection.

Club sandwich: The Elite's triple-layer monocoque.

Even had all the components been produced in accordance with the specification, many parts of the structure were so close to the point of failure that some revisions to the design would anyway have been necessary but the early cars were far from perfect.  The contact for the fabrication of the bodies had been won by a boat-builder, then one of the few companies with much experience in molding fibreglass.  However, the Elite was a more complex design than a boat hull and fibreglass was still a novel material, even Chevrolet in the United States, with access to the financial and engineering resources of General Motors, found early in the production of the Corvette there were lessons still to be learned.  After the first 250-odd were built, Lotus became aware there were problems, the need for a fix urgent.  Cleverly, the body consisted of three stressed-fiberglass layers which, when joined in a monocoque, created the bulkheads and eight torsion boxes gave the structure its strength and stiffness although the success was something of a surprise.  The designer, working in the pre-CAD era and with no experience of the behavior of fibreglass, had doubted the material would be strong enough so had the first prototype built with some steel and aluminum plates sandwiched between the layers with mounting brackets bonded in points at the rear to support the suspension and differential mountings.  In subsequent tests, these proved unnecessary but so poorly molded were many of the layers that structural failures became common, the resin porings of inconsistent thickness creating weaknesses at critical points, suspension struts and differentials known to punch themselves loose from mountings or even tear away chunks of the supposedly supporting fibreglass.

1962 Lotus Elite S2.

Needing an operation more acquainted with the tight tolerances demanded in precision engineering, Lotus switched suppliers, the molding contract granted to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. This transformed quality control and the remaining 750-odd Elites carried an S2 designation, the early cars retrospectively (but unofficially) dubbed S1.  Even so, despite the improved, lighter and stiffer shell, it would be another generation before the structural implications of fibreglass would fully be understood and the flaws inherent in the design remained, suspension attachment points sometimes still prone to detachment, Lotus content to the extent it now happened only under extreme loading rather than habitually.

Coventry Climax FWE, 1962 Lotus Elite S2 SE.

Improbably, the power-plant was the 1.2 litre Coventry Climax FWE (Fire-Water-Elite), an all-aluminum inline four cylinder engine which began life as the FWA (feather weight automotive), derived from a water-pumping unit for the UK Government’s fleet of fire-trucks but, small, light and robust, when tuned, it proved ideally suited to motorsport.  The first derivative for competition was the FWB, the unexpected fork prompting Coventry-Climax to rename to versions still used on fire-trucks to FWP (P=Pump).  The FWE was produced especially for the Elite but its qualities attracted a number of specialist race-car builders and in historic racing, the little powerhouse remains competitive to this day.

Nürburgring 1000 km, May 1962 (Hunt / Buxton (DNF)).

The combination of light-weight, a surprisingly powerful engine and a degree of aerodynamic efficiency which few for decades would match delivered a package with a then unrivalled combination of performance and economy.  On the road, point-to-point, it was able to maintain high average speeds under most conditions and only in then unusual places like the German autobahns with their unlimited speeds could heavier, more powerful machines assert their advantage.

Le Mans 24 Hour, June 1959.  Lotus Elite #41 leads Ferrari 250TR #14. The Ferrari (DNF) retired after overheating, the Elite finishing eighth overall, winning the 1.5 litre GT class.

On the circuits, it enjoyed an illustrious career, notable especially for success in long-distance events at the Nürburgring and Le Mans.  The frugal fuel consumption was an important factor too, as well as claiming five class trophies in the Le Mans 24 hour race, the Elite twice won the mysterious Indice de performance (an index of thermal efficiency), a curious piece of mathematics actually designed to ensure, regardless of other results, a French car would always win something.

Lotus Elite (Leo Geoghegan), Phillip Island, 1960.  That year an Elite would win the Australian GT Championship, contested on the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst. 

One problem however was never solved: profitability.  It was something which would plague the UK’s low-volume manufacturers throughout the 1960s, for, whatever the design and engineering prowess available, there was often a lack of financial acumen and accounting skills, many companies never fully evolving from their cottage-industry origins in a back shed, their administrative structures still close to the family business they had once been.  Whether Lotus lost quite as much per Elite as the legend suggests isn’t known but it certainly wasn’t profitable.  Those lessons were learned and the replacement, while less intriguing a design, would be easier to build, more reliable in operation and, compared to the Elite, mass-produced.  The replacement was called the Elan.

1975 Lotus Elite 503 (Type 75).

The Elite name was reprised.  Between 1974-1982, the Elite (Types 75 & 83) was one of a number of the then fashionable wedge-shaped designs which would litter the decade.  Effectively replacing the Elan +2, the new Elite was big and heavy by earlier standards, its performance in some aspects inferior to the Elan but it was a difficult era and many manufacturers with more resources did worse.  Later variations of this were called the Eclat and Excel but, like much of what was done in the 1970s, none are remembered with great fondness.

Lotus Elite Concept, 2010.

More promising was the Elite Concept, shown in 2010.  Hardly original, and actually derivative in just about every way, it nevertheless tantalized all with a specification list including Toyota’s fine 5.0 litre Lexus V8 but any hope of a production version vanished after one of the many corporate restructures undertaken in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC, 2009-2011).

Mnemonic

Mnemonic (pronounced ni-mon-ik)

(1) Something assisting or intended to assist the memory.

(2) Pertaining to mnemonics or to memory.

(3)In computing, truncated code thought easy to remember (eg STO for store).

1660–1670: From the New Latin mnemonicus from the Ancient Greek μνημονικός (mnēmonikós) (of memory) derived from μνήμων (mnḗmōn) (remembering, mindful) & μνᾶσθαι (mnâsthai) (to remember); the ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European men (to think).  The meaning "aiding the memory", a back-formation from mnemonics dates from 1753, the noun meaning "mnemonic device" is from 1858.  The use in computer programming emerged in the early days of code and was a space-saving (eg del rather than delete) tool as well.  Mnemonical was the original form from the 1660s.

Sans Forgetica

Sans Forgetica sample text.

Recently released, Sans Forgetica (which translates as "without forgetting") is a sans-serif font developed by RMIT University in Melbourne.  Back-slanted and with gaps in the character constructions, it’s designed explicitly to assist readers better to understand and retain in their memory what they’ve read.  Perhaps counter-intuitively for those outside the field, the shape is intended to reduce legibility, thereby (1) lengthening the tame taken to read the text and (2) adding complexity to learning and absorbing what’s been read.  Together, they create what in cognitive psychology and neuroscience is called "desirable difficulty", in this case forcing (RMIT might prefer "nudging") people to concentrate.

The first three paragraphs of Lindsay Lohan's Wikipedia page, rendered in Sans Forgetica.  Sans was from the Middle English saunz & sans, from the Old French sans, senz & sens, from the Latin sine (without) conflated with absēns (absent, remote).   Forgetica was an opportunistic coining, the construct being forget + -ica.  Forget was from the Middle English forgeten, forgiten, foryeten & forȝiten, from the Old English forġietan (to forget) (which was influenced by the Old Norse geta (to get; to guess), from the Proto-West Germanic fragetan (to give up, forget).  The -ica suffix was from the Latin -ica, the neuter plural of -icus (belonging to derived from; of or pertaining to; connected with).

From usually a young age, readers become skilled at scanning text, a process helped by most publishers seeking to render their works as legible as possible.  The theory of desirable difficulty is that omitting parts of the font requires the reader to pause and process information more slowly, thus provoking an additional cognitive processing which may enhance both understanding and retention.  While the application of the science to a font is novel, there’s nothing original about Sans Forgetica as a piece of typography, it being described as a hybrid of several existing schools and within the theory, on the basis of a small-group sample of students, it’s claimed to be a balance between legibility and difficulty.  According to the documents supplied by the developer, it’s not been tested as a device for advertisers to draw people to their text, the theory of that being people scan and dismiss (without retention) the great bulk of the large, static signage which is a feature of just about every urban environment.  With Sans Forgetica, because it can’t as quickly be scanned, people will tend longer to linger and so more carefully read the whole; a memorable event itself.