Re: help with an unknown character

On 10 Jan 2013, at 23:57, Gerrit Ansmann <gansmann_at_uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:17:09 +0100, Michael Everson <everson_at_evertype.com> wrote:
>
>> Randomly reversed long s?
>
> Hmm, this would not fit the sloped serif. Rather a flipped, dotless j.

Well, yes, though dot less j isn't very German. The long s seemed slightly better-motivated. But in terms of the serif you are certainly right.

>
> Wildly guessing, I would say, that whoever made the cover wanted it to reflect “Widerspruch” (contradiction) or the tertium non datur (the excluded middle), which is strongly related to the “Satz vom Widerspruch” (law of contradiction). To this purpose, he employed a ‘contradictory’ character: something that the reader might guess to be a flipped capital long s or plainly a something that is as far detached from any existing character as possible while still being recognisable as a character. Or it is just supposed to provoke thoughts – in which it succeeded, as this discussion prooves.
>

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Received on Thu Jan 10 2013 - 18:23:57 CST