> I for instance can't recognize comic sans or any other font than Courier by sight. So for me it carries no insult. While you might not be able to recognize t

> I for instance can't recognize comic sans or any other font than Courier by sight. So for me it carries no insult. While you might not be able to recognize the exact font used, (What's the difference between Arial and Calibri?) you can still look at the general category of font. Times New Roman and other serifed fonts have a connotation of formal writing - the New York Times is written in a serifed font. Courier New, for me, has a connotation of formal military orders (Don't ask me why they write it in that font. I assume it's to be consistent with the 1920s) Even if you can't name the exact font, you still get connotations associated with it. For many programmers, seeing Courier New in a block of text implies code. I'm sure that the reason for doing it originally was probably arbitrary, but it's the established manner of doing things, just like wearing a strip of silk or nylon around your neck is considered more formal than just the collared shirt. Comic Sans is a font that is used to convey informality. It's something that you would use, as one of the Stack Exchange answers cites, as a daycare sign or a pamphlet targeted at children. It's a tool for the job that it's designed for. And while you can use any text to present information, (Any tool becomes a hammer if you try hard enough) it's not the proper tool for presenting formal findings or writing a newspaper. And that's okay - there are plenty of other fonts with the desired level of formality. Of course, you're probably aware of all this, and your response is probably "Well, the rules are pretty stupid. People are taking academic presentations and scientific results less seriously because the font is funny." There's something to this argument, but the fact is that we all make judgments based on past experience, and adherence to social rules is one of the things we judge. If established rules state that you dress nicely to an interview, we negatively judge someone who shows up in a ripped T-shirt and jeans. We might be wrong about such a candidate - he might be the greatest worker alive - but more than likely, his cluelessness (or hostility) regarding the social rules of an interview says something negative about him.