5 ms·

In many typefaces the "et" in "&" is still completely legible. It's common to see "&c." in older texts instead of "etc."

giancarlostoro 4y ago
> It's common to see "&c." in older texts instead of "etc." Guessing this was to save on ink or something?
- lucideer 4y ago
  more of an aesthetic choice I'd say, as with a lot of typography (after legibility)
- vehemenz 4y ago
  Manuscripts were very large and time-consuming to create. Ligatures save time, space, and materials (paper and ink). Most of these conventions carried over into the printing age and were slowly phased out.
amelius 4y ago
You can also see it in HN comments. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28194901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28194901
chrismorgan 4y ago
I’ve consistently used &c. (almost always in italics, too, as was the custom due to the convention of italics for foreign language words, but especially also because it yields even prettier results in many fonts—the “et” is more likely to come through in italics¹) for 8½ years now.² I’ve only been asked about it twice (once “what is that?” and once “I think you made a typo”), though I’ve probably confused or surprised more people than that, and there have been a few occasions over the years when I’ve deliberately used “et cetera” instead. I also type typographic punctuation (curly quotes, em dashes in sentences, en dashes in ranges and such, narrow no-break spaces, true hyphens and minus signs in some contexts, &c.) completely naturally with my Compose key. If you get ' from me, I meant ' rather than ‘ or ’. Or I was using my phone. I should see about adding some of this stuff to wvkbd. It’s all good fun. :-) (And that emoticon would have been U+1F642 SLIGHTLY SMILING FACE, entered with `Compose : )`, but I went ASCII since HN strips emoji.) I also deliberately adopted an idiosyncratic written form for my ampersands maybe five years ago, based on the 8-with-legs shape, where I omit the bottom right leg, starting halfway between the ending line and the 8 intersection. I decided this was prettier and slightly more legible. I… I suspect I might have become a typography snob somewhere along the way. I’m just going to disguise it with the excuse that I like to be correct. —⁂—³ ¹ For example, find the &c. in https://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-fizzbuzz/ https://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-fizzbuzz/, and compare its beautiful curly etty ampersand with the boring non-italic ampersand in the same font in “What’s the deal with this &str”. (I’m assuming the use of the serif Equity font that I load on the page.) ² Judging by my HN comments, I switched some time between January 29, 2014 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141477 is my last comment where I wrote “etc.”) and February 12, 2014 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7223153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7223153 is my first comment where I wrote “&c.”). ³ `Compose h r`, horizontal rule like the HTML tag. For other characters, ½ was `Compose 1 2` (possibly the only stock mapping used in this comment), and the superscript numbers for footnotes are `Compose ^ 1` and so forth.
divbzero 4y ago
Some of those typefaces can be seen in the images here: https://creativepro.com/ampersand-history-usage/ https://creativepro.com/ampersand-history-usage/

giancarlostoro 4y ago

> It's common to see "&c." in older texts instead of "etc." Guessing this was to save on ink or something?

lucideer 4y ago
more of an aesthetic choice I'd say, as with a lot of typography (after legibility)
vehemenz 4y ago
Manuscripts were very large and time-consuming to create. Ligatures save time, space, and materials (paper and ink). Most of these conventions carried over into the printing age and were slowly phased out.

amelius 4y ago

You can also see it in HN comments. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28194901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28194901

chrismorgan 4y ago

I’ve consistently used &c. (almost always in italics, too, as was the custom due to the convention of italics for foreign language words, but especially also because it yields even prettier results in many fonts—the “et” is more likely to come through in italics¹) for 8½ years now.² I’ve only been asked about it twice (once “what is that?” and once “I think you made a typo”), though I’ve probably confused or surprised more people than that, and there have been a few occasions over the years when I’ve deliberately used “et cetera” instead. I also type typographic punctuation (curly quotes, em dashes in sentences, en dashes in ranges and such, narrow no-break spaces, true hyphens and minus signs in some contexts, &c.) completely naturally with my Compose key. If you get ' from me, I meant ' rather than ‘ or ’. Or I was using my phone. I should see about adding some of this stuff to wvkbd. It’s all good fun. :-) (And that emoticon would have been U+1F642 SLIGHTLY SMILING FACE, entered with `Compose : )`, but I went ASCII since HN strips emoji.) I also deliberately adopted an idiosyncratic written form for my ampersands maybe five years ago, based on the 8-with-legs shape, where I omit the bottom right leg, starting halfway between the ending line and the 8 intersection. I decided this was prettier and slightly more legible. I… I suspect I might have become a typography snob somewhere along the way. I’m just going to disguise it with the excuse that I like to be correct. —⁂—³ ¹ For example, find the &c. in https://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-fizzbuzz/ https://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-fizzbuzz/, and compare its beautiful curly etty ampersand with the boring non-italic ampersand in the same font in “What’s the deal with this &str”. (I’m assuming the use of the serif Equity font that I load on the page.) ² Judging by my HN comments, I switched some time between January 29, 2014 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141477 is my last comment where I wrote “etc.”) and February 12, 2014 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7223153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7223153 is my first comment where I wrote “&c.”). ³ `Compose h r`, horizontal rule like the HTML tag. For other characters, ½ was `Compose 1 2` (possibly the only stock mapping used in this comment), and the superscript numbers for footnotes are `Compose ^ 1` and so forth.

divbzero 4y ago

Some of those typefaces can be seen in the images here: https://creativepro.com/ampersand-history-usage/ https://creativepro.com/ampersand-history-usage/