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US Govt Makes Times New Roman 14 Official Font
pollux03 writes "According to ABC news, 'In an internal memorandum distributed on Wednesday, the department declared "Courier New 12" - the font and size decreed for US diplomatic documents for years - to be obsolete and unacceptable after February 1.
"In response to many requests and with a view to making our written work easier to read, we are moving to a new standard font: 'Times New Roman 14'," said the memorandum. ' The report goes on to cite a few exceptions to the rule including official telegraphs."
There are only three exceptions to the draconian new typographical rules: telegrams, treaty materials prepared by the State Department's legal affairs office and documents drawn up for the president's signature, it said.
As those will all be done in the MS Comic Font.
I had my money on 20 point Dingbat.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
the government declared- thumbtwiddling is now the offical activity to perform when you cannot think of useless directives.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
It's time for the new rome to fall.
"New Roman Times"
Long live the empire.
I would think Verdana or Tahoma would be a much better solution. Times New Roman is SOOO Windows 3.1! :)
Are they using 1.1 inch margins and 1.5x line spacing too?
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
How appropriate since we are apparently the New Rome .
Shhh, Wingdings is the new crytographic encoding method for top secret documents, replacing the good old double-ROT13 encoding used during the Cold War.
The word "Oil" is often misintepreted as "Weapons of Mass Destruction" when written in Courier New 12.
It's a jobs program, to help out all of the unemployed fontographers, put out of work by the dot-com bust.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Be thankful. It is a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. :)
Think about it, up until now it was courier but now it is times New ROMAN. This fits with the new view of the US as the Roman empire and sends a subtle but unmistakable message to everyone exactly how the US is to be addressed and in what way. Dont think that the word courier was originally french has nothing to do with it.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
No wonder the 5 evil acolytes selected him.
Old guys don't see very well anymore.
Telegrams?! They still use telegrams? If so, where can I still send one from? I'm sure a telegram to a Senator might get more attention than a letter and certainly more than an email. Plus sending telegrams sounds cool.
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
In related news, the US Government changes the official resolution of all desktops to 640x480, 256 colors.
I, for one, welcome our new roman time overlords
actually, i am typing this on the school's computer in my classroom, so, technically, yes, taxpayers are paying me to argue!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Yeah, but terrorist too, ZM"Qoo
try it using Wingdings
In other news, students around the country rejoice. Now, they can use US Governement official font to turn a two page paper into three pages.
The President was tired of receiving official documents that ended with the ASCII art version of goatse.cx.
"Re:14 point? why so big? isn't 10 the default standard for most written communication?"
Most likely aggressive lobbying by the pulp and paper industry.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Not to mention the vast amount of disk space that would be saved by using a smaller font!
You expect information from the headline.
wait no, scratch that;
You read the headline.
God bless slashdot.
Actually, I don't read the headline, NOR the actual article. I just come to post some smarmy tripe.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Seems a little obsolescent.
;)
Or even obsolete!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Dear Senator. STOP.
Please consider the following things that should be changed. STOP.
-The RIAA. STOP.
-Microsoft. STOP.
-The war in Iraq. STOP.
-The Patriot Act. STOP. No, stop. STOP. I mean seriously, stop it now. STOP.
--Chag
...the department of homeland security recently adopted Zapf Dingbats as its official font.
Should clear up their communiques a bit.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Times New Roman instead Garamond? What were those aesthetically clueless dingbats thinking?
That's it. I've completely lost faith in our government, and political processes in general. If they can't ascertain Garamond's clear superiority to TNR, well, they'll just have to impeached, that's all.
And sent for serious rehabilitation. And re-training, with those methods used for de-programming cult victims.
I mean, seriously, TNR over Garamond? I ask you...
Interesting!?!?!?
It's not Interesting. It was a freakin' joke!! Geez...
Sorry for replying to my own post...
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
When my dad was in the Navy there was a cost-cutting initiative to reduce wasted paper. Somebody noticed that there was a lot of blank space around the edges of typed text and decided that the best way to reduce these margins was to use 8 x 10 1/2 inch paper.
It was abandoned when they figured out the special sized paper was more expensive. My dad still has a ream of the stuff.
The big question is, What font did the memo use?
It was probably a bunch of government employees doing the moderation...
No more ASCII art in official US government memos.
BTW, as others have pointed out, this is not a government-wide standard, just a State Department one.
Is that all US government reports now have to have to be accompanied by "the correct cover sheet". Oh, and all White House press conferences must have at least "fifteen pieces of flair".
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Today the U.S. Government has issued these equally important directives:
1) All federal employees must tie their shoelaces using a right-over-left Ian knot.
2) Handwritten ampersands must be of the official '&' variety and not the 'sloppy plus' variety.
3) Toilet paper must be folded, not crumpled.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
The 20 point dingbat is actually running the country, so maybe you should collect on your bet.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
What about the official font for college freshmen? TNR 14-point is fine when you sort of know something about the topic of the paper you're writing, but TNR 20-point will happily fill the 3-page requirement of the paper.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
we work all day, to pay their salaries, we do this on our spare time, they do it on work hours.
:]
ok,ok, i am at work too
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
In 12pt Courier New, War Was Beginning...
What happen!!
Someone set us up the Times!!
What!!
We get bigger!!
New Font Turn on!!
It's Huge!!
How are you gentlemen!!
All your document are belong to us!!
You have no chance to survive, make your change!!
Join the Free Software Foundation
I always said governments were blind and this futher proves it. I could read Times New Roman 14 from space.
Dammit! You're right. We should also get paid for this.
There's never enough when you have too little
How did he respond to your suggestion that lowercase letters at the beginning of sentences and for the pronoun "I" should be acceptable?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
10 posts on Monday, 4 so far today... You work? I want your job...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
We have always been at work with Eurasia.
We have always used Times New Roman 14.
See, it all makes sense now! "New Times Roman".
"New Times" == "Changing Times" == "New World Order"
And what kind of "Order"? Roman law, the law of Empire, the end of the Republic, the... the...
Well, at least they didn't choose Comic Sans. I'd hate to think what kind of world that font would be ushering in.
Read, L
why so big? isn't 10 the default standard for most written communication?
I find it kind of ironic that the only people using times new roman 14 will be government employees and high school students trying to fill at least two pages with text.
16 point "Spooky" font
Naa... it's all in 14-point NSA Redacted Font, with random unredacted words just to peak your curiousity.
We have XXXX XXX alert X XXXX a XXXXXXXX XXX Laden XXXXXXX XX transgendered XXX XXXXX X to XXXXX XXX XXXX giraffes. Advise XXX XXXXX XX XXXXXX the XXXXX XXXX and XXXXXXXX.
My mind goes numb just thinking of a conference room full of Gov't types arguing the merits of their "pet" fonts.
Be bringing the BIG coffee cup to that one.
"..... and next Bob will be doing a PowerPoint presentation on the exciting history of Lucinda 12, go ahead Bob......"
[head smacks table]
If Steve Jobs was President is would've been chicago.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Is there a place on the web that panders to my lust for violence?
You're on it...right now.
I think you just realized the real motive. The ink lobby has "donated to the president". Everyone knows how expensive ink cartridges are(or laser). Open Open Office (pun intended) and type something. You will see that the end number of pages is the same, but that Times New Roman 14 uses wider parts of letters (total width same including spacing). You will need to open it up to see what I mean. This will cost the governement millions paying for these extra cartridges. Fear the Ink Lobby!
Mod Wisely.
Now why did I go and enroll for a Masters program next fall again?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
And for classified documents, Wingdings.
Sorry.