elvish

character 1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms

resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book

of Kells". Invented and described by J.R.R. Tolkien in "The

Lord of The Rings" as an orthography for his fictional

"elvish" languages, this system (which is both visually and

phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend

to be intrigued by artificial languages in general). It is

traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems,

and the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their

demo items. By extension, the term might be used for any odd

or unreadable typeface produced by a graphics device.

2. The typeface mundanely called "B"ocklin", an art-decoish

display font. [Why?]

[Jargon File]

(1998-04-28)