I wonder sometimes what would be the oldest extant word based on technology no longer in use. Taping an interview? Dialing someone? https://twitter.com/hels/status/679059633949011970 …
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Replying to @mwichary
Font is a good one, late 17th century. Still used for selling type, but several generations of obsolete tech later. In general there are a lot of words from printing, which makes sense, considering that printers preserved the written word, so their terminology survived.
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Replying to @kimaboe
But font feels like it doesn’t count because fonts still exist. They’re just a different/more modern version of the same idea. But I bet there must have been a device used for typesetting that’s no longer there, immortalized in some term…
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Replying to @mwichary
Oh, for sure, Adobe software is full of them, 'leading', 'slug' and 'kerning' comes to mind.
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Replying to @kimaboe
Lead still exists. :·) Kerning was not a technology, though, right? Just a term? Slug feels the closest, except it’s not really in common use. Aah, this will drive me mad now.
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Replying to @mwichary
Lead still exists, but leading is a specific product/tool used in typesetting, that is now obsolete and commercially unavailable. Kerning is a technique, grinding away at the letters using precise tools, whereas the software version achieves the effect using a different method :p
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Replying to @kimaboe
Sure! But both seem far from my original tweet. :·)
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Uppercase/lowercase referred to actual cases for storing the bits of movable type, right?
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Yes!!! That’s a pretty great example.
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