Shady Characters
has been on sale for over a week, and now that the furore has died down a little I thought I’d collect links to all the articles I wrote in support of the book. Some of these have already been featured here; others were posted on Twitter, Facebook and so on, and a few more are new. Without further ado, then, and in no particular order, here you are:
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Houston, Keith. “The Ancient Roots of Punctuation”. Page Turner.
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Houston, Keith. “Smile! A History of Emoticons”. Wall Street Journal.
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Houston, Keith. “The List: Keith Houston on Four Unusual Punctuation Marks”. Financial Times.
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Houston, Keith. “The History of #—and 6 Other Symbols That Rule Twitter (and the Web)”. Time.com.
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Houston, Keith. “8 Punctuation Marks That Are No Longer Used”. The Huffington Post.
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Houston, Keith. “The Rise and Fall of the Pilcrow, Part I”. Lexicon Valley.
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Houston, Keith. “The Rise and Fall of the Pilcrow, Part II”. Lexicon Valley.
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Houston, Keith. “The Mysterious Manicule”. Lexicon Valley.
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Houston, Keith. “The Rise and Fall of the Infamous SarcMark”. The Daily Beast.
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Houston, Keith. “Irony”. Grammar Girl.
If I had to pick a favourite, it would have to be “The List: Keith Houston on four unusual punctuation marks”, published by the FT; it’s a short article, but that only made it more challenging — and rewarding — to write.
Shady Characters was also (favourably!) reviewed in a number of places:
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Robinson, Andrew. “Technology: Pulp, Pilcrows and Interrobangs”. Nature 501, no. 7468 (September 25, 2013): 491-491. https://doi.org/10.1038/501491a.
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Sansom, Ian. “Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and Other Typographical Curiosities by Keith Houston – Review”. The Guardian.
And finally, I was interviewed for both The Atlantic Wire and the local newspaper for my home town, the East Fife Mail. I wonder, can anyone else say that?
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Schonfeld, Zach. “Celebrate National Punctuation Day With Thousands of Years of Punctuation History”. The Atlantic Wire.
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East Fife Mail. “Full Marks for Buckhaven man’s First Book”.
Comment posted by Paul H. Tanimura on
This is not really a comment on the book, but an inquiry to solicit the wisdom of its readers for deciphering the ‘shady characters’ woven into a golden brocade, believed to be produced in the 17th century China by a Christian missionary and subsequently exported to Japan before Christianity was forbidden. High resolution image can be shown by clicking on the tub at the left bottom corner. There are two character strings, each composed of four characters, possibly in reference to Jesus and Mary.
Comment posted by Keith Houston on
Hi Paul — I’m afraid I’m rather out of my depth on this one! At first glance, some of the characters look Greek, while others have a runic feel about them, but that’s about all I can contribute. I’ll post a link to your site to the blog, and perhaps a reader can shed some light on the brocade’s meaning.
Comment posted by Paul H. Tanimura on
This is a follow-up to my previous entry. You need this URL to view the brocade in question: http://www2.gol.com/users/tanimura/Brocade.html