I had a stroke of genius1 on the bus ride home today. I realized: If I had a blog about Hebrew fonts/typography, I could call it…drumroll please…Serifim.
Unfortunately, this epiphany was in vain as I have no content for such a blog, except to say that David is my font of choice when typing in Hebrew. However, I was happy to find that someone who does know something about the subject has stepped up to the plate.
Naturally, thinking about serifs got me wondering where the word came from, and lexicographers seem at a loss to answer that question confidently. American Heritage posits “Perhaps from Dutch schreef, line, from Middle Dutch scērve, from scriven, to write, from Latin scrībere”; the OED simply says “Of obscure origin,” quoting from an 1841 printing dictionary as its earliest source with the term.
Unsurprisingly, in Hebrew it’s סריף [seʁif]. (Seraph, on the other hand, is שרף [saʁaf].)
Finally, I need to work on this habit of introducing every sentence with an adverb. :-/
