Making books in Low-Tech & LT:Companions 1 & 3

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

That, I strongly suspect, is a question of familiarity rather than fanciness vs. utility.

Agreed. When I first started uni I didn't know the Greek alphabet. Within 3 months of daily exposure I was reading Greek as quickly as English. However, even today, I still struggle with texts that are written in all capitals because I had mainly been exposed to lower case.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Agreed. When I first started uni I didn't know the Greek alphabet. Within 3 months of daily exposure I was reading Greek as quickly as English. However, even today, I still struggle with texts that are written in all capitals because I had mainly been exposed to lower case.

There probably are some differences - it can after all take a page or two to get used to a big font change, and essentially every manuscript is in a different font - but they're small.

I suspect the contractions are the biggest hurdle for modern readers, and that's no different than learning to penetrate texting, which uses lots of them for not so dissimilar reasons. Being familiar enough with the variations to read any legible manuscript as easily as clean print is a reasonable perk. If you don't have it, reading time for a short text in an especially poor or eccentric hand might go up enough to notice, or require some sort of PER roll to avoid getting confused.

[Flyndaran]

I'm sure I remember just such a suggestion in one of the Perk Threads.
At least such a person wouldn't have such the hassle I often have with Captchas.