Many years ago, I ran across a word for a decorative symbol publishers sometimes use to separate sections of text within a chapter. For the life of me, I can't recall it and it still nags me from time to time.
Can anyone help? Thanks.
I asked a friend who used to be a printer, and he suggested fleuron, but that seems to be a flower-shaped dingbat (aka flower, floret) that is used to separate text on a title page or used to make lines. Some books use an asterisk, an asterism (three asterisks in a triangular formation), or empty squares to set off text within a chapter after a change of time, place, or theme.
But not for symbols is the process so named. The symbols already have names. The act of the separating is called subordination as in the "sub-ordering" of sections and paragraphs.
If not pray tell me the look of this separating symbol.
Bill, if you ever get back here--I just Googled "list of publishing terms" (without the quotes) and got quite a selection. I only looked at the first one, which did not have a word fitting your def., BUT--at the end it did have a person to contact for further questions. Good luck!
Thanks, all. I'm sorry I didn't respond to your efforts but completely forgot that I made the posting. None of your suggestions seem to square with my memory but your idea to check the list of publishing terms on Google is a good one, Jackie.
Pi characters (also known as
special sorts, and in the U.K.,
peculiars) include symbols, reference marks, logos, mathematical and monetary symbols, and decorative elements... like the examples cited: pilcrow, section sign, fleuron and asterisk. (Zapf) Dingbat is a pi font consisting of symbols.
there is a word to decribe being unable to recall the word one wants to use. i can't remember the word, of course! anyone?
one such word is lethologica.
-joe (others are on the tip of my tongue) friday
What ever name you give it. It's a symptom of the start of the old fashioned great forgetfulness. There's a word for that too. But I forgot.
there is a word to decribe being unable to recall the word one wants to use. i can't remember the word, of course! anyone?
It's something like dyspraxia (but that's not it). Is it dysnomia perhaps? Or dyslogia?
let's not develop
loganamnosis about this. aphasia, anomia, dysnomia, and tip-of-the-tongue syndrome are all clinical terms. as Cecil, of
The Straight Dope discovered, the layman's term *is
lethologica.
-
joe (straight and dopey) friday
I'll bet most laymen don't know that it's their term.
It's one of those words you forget really easily.
It's one of those words you forget really easily.
No, it's one of those words you never knew in the first place!
