Thinking typographic problems with the glottal stop
Tai Cossich
Methods of Intent, 9 June 2020
I am investigating the relationship between spelling choices and typography. Particularly where it goes wrong! The glottal stop serves as a fascinating case in point as it is often spelt with extra-alphabetic symbols (a hyphen, an apostrophe, or even the number seven, for example) generating all sorts of typographic problems. Text markup techniques are used as a method to examine these problems, generating two types of outcomes: 1) a framework for describing typographic problems; 2) a series of markup-led compositions.
This research is conducted at the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London, where I am a PhD candidate.
My supervisors are Prof. Teal Triggs and Dr. Mark Sebba, and the research is supported by the CAPES Foundation, Brazil.
visual glossary
for the Methods of Intent presentation
1. Typographic problems
Letter < N > built with nails (iron manhole cover, 1890).
Misplaced tilde < ~ > (Kayabi textbook, detail).
Letter < ǧ > displayed in regular version of the typeface, instead of bold like the others.
(The Guardian, 2017. Webpage detail).
Letter < n > added by hand (Chainsaw Nr.3, detail. In Triggs, 2006 "Scissors and Glue [...]").
2. Extra-alphabetic symbols
3. Practice of adding extra-alphabetic symbols to spelling
Graffiti, anonymous.
The Pickwick Papers, (Charles Dickens, 1988[1836]:354).
Graffiti, anonymous.
"sk:n clinic" logo.
4. Extra-alphabetic symbols used to represent the glottal stop in different languages.
In Squamish the glottal stop is a letter in the alphabet < 7 > (road sign, British Columbia, Canada).
In Lushootseed the glottal stop is a letter in the alphabet < ʔ > (schoolbook, detail).
In Hawaiian the glottal stop is a letter called ʻokina < ʻ > (t-shirt, detail).
Essayists Barltrop and Wolveridge experimented writing the Cockney glottal stop with an exclamation mark < ! > (The Muvver Tongue, 1980:100, detail).
5. Typographic problems related to the glottal stop
Chipewyan baby name not allowed on birth certificate due to traditional glottal stop. CBC News (2015, detail).
International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for the glottal stop < ʔ > erroneously displayed as a quesiton mark < ? >. Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language Oxford Reference (2017, detail).
Hawaiian ʻokina displayed in inverted position. Hawaiian translation of the Declaration of Human Rights, in the United Nations website (2019, detail).
Comma < , > errouneously placed bellow glottal stop < ʔ > to form a question mark < ? > in a typewriter adapted to produce IPA symbols (the question mark was deconstructed in order to produce a "dotless question mark"). Phonemics (Pike, 1947:187 detail).