Words about Words - October 2020
Hello, and welcome to Words about Words.
As usual, I start off with a selection of things that I’ve enjoyed or found interesting or useful. Then, I finish off with a few things I’ve done over the past month.
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Interesting, entertaining, or useful
17 tips for great copywriting
I don’t always agree with all writing tips, all of the time, but these are pretty sound.
Even if you’re a good writer, it can’t hurt to check back over these sort of articles every now and then to stop you from drifting into bad habits.
Doves Press Font revived by Robert Green
Thanks to my dad for sharing this with me.
After the Doves Press closed, it’s most famous type was ‘bequeathed’ to the Thames, with the original metal sorts being thrown into the river. Now, a hundred years later, the type has been recovered and made available in a digital format more suited to twenty-first century usage.
You can read the surprisingly fascinating story at this link.
Are we nearly there yet? How Margaret Calvert steered Britain into the fast lane
Staying in the world of typefaces, Oliver Wainwright in the Guardian recently wrote about Margaret Calvert, who designed the lettering seen on British road signs.
It’s an interesting portrait of an impressive woman with an impressive body of work.
Beach Books
In time, I would like to return to Latvia (where I spent a weekend for a stag do a few years ago) and enjoy the country properly. One of my stops will be Anna Iltnere’s ‘sea library’, Beach Books, which sounds like exactly the kind of place I would like to spend some time.
Read more about it at this link.
The lesbian partnership that changed literature
Emma Garman, in the Paris Review, writes about Jane Heap and Margaret C. Anderson who, in the 1920s and ‘30s, "left an indelible imprint on avant-garde culture between the wars”.
You can read the article at this link.
Goodbye nine-to-five; hello Oxford hours
Charles Handy, in the Idler, explains his delightful-sounding routine: Work in the morning, long lunch, exercise in the afternoon, socialise in the evening.
25 years of His Dark Materials: Philip Pullman on the Journey of a lifetime
Philip Pullman ponders the changes that have happened since he first started writing about the world of Lyra Silvertongue in 1993.
It’s an interesting read, and it’s at this link.
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Things I’ve done
Lonely Goat
A significant chunk of my last month has been spent editing previous work of mine for Lonely Goat. Specifically, I have cut down my long, comprehensive training articles to make them more suited to our new reference page section.
Writing 5,000 words is easy compared to trying to cut half of them out!
You can read the results of my efforts, here at this link.
My website
Over on my blog, you can read:
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Thanks for reading
I hope you enjoyed October’s edition of Words about Words. If you fancy a chat about any of this, please get in touch by emailing ‘hello at jonathansbean dot com’.
Keep your eyes peeled for November’s edition arriving in your inbox on the last Thursday of the month.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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PS… You can look at previous editions of Words about Words at jonathansbean.substack.com. Of course, I add each edition to my website, jonathansbean.com, anyway, but it does provide another way for you to keep updated.