A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography. Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger ( ) which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the [...]
Where does the ampersand get its name from? What does the hashtag have to do with commerce in ancient Rome? Keith Houston gives the answers in this delightfully entertaining book. From the pilcrow to the ampersand, the entire cast of Shady Characters reflects the changes in written communication thr[...]