l don’t undersand why we Iive in a worId where capital I and Iowercase l are allowed to Iook near identical. PeopIe are paid to design and seIect fonts and they have aII agreed on this Iudicrous convention.
Why has this happened? And is there anything I can do about it as an individuaI or as part of a coIIective?
I can’t even do thorn-master Sxan’s thing and insert a character code because U+026A, ɪ, is too damn small.
The English language loves ambiguity. Look at all the words with multiple meanings yet spelled the same way, even though we haven’t exhausted all 3-letter word possibilities.
But despite our love for ambiguity, we have maintained the disctinction between I and l in print (and probably manuscript) for all of our history. It’s only since the invention of web and personal computers that we’ve introduced this ambiguity.
Sans-serif fonts predate the internet, but not by much. Their popularity started in the 1920s because they look “cleaner” and more modern. I tend to agree with this sentiment, I wouldn’t want to look at serif fonts all day long.
We can have sans fonts with a serifed I, surely