Song about colour fonts - in French
A few weeks ago I was thinking about colour fonts and I was thinking about whether they could be publicised by being advertised, on an industry-wide basis, at the Tour de France.
Not with any particular team, but neutrally, perhaps, say on the 5km to go banner.
Yet what would the banner say, bearing in mind that it would be in France?
And what would be the design of the banner so as to show colour font capability to best advantage?
As some readers may know, I like to write songs, and some lyrics seemed to form and I wrote them down.
Later I changed them slightly so as to be correct French, as far as I know, though I am not a linguist.
They went through the spell checker for French in Serif PagePlus X6 fine.
Alas, I am not fluent in French and so I put the lyrics to one side.
Yet, I wondered if there is anyone here who is fluent in French who might have a look at them please?
For those who are not fluent in French, but know a little of the language and who are also interested in colour fonts, maybe this song might be of interest anyway.
Here is the song, noting that my French is not fluent, so maybe it is not quite correct French. Please sing it at a lively pace.
Les belles fontes colorées
Fontes colorées
Fontes colorées
Beaucoup des fontes colorées
Écrivons-nous
avec les logiciels
avec beaucoup des fontes colorées
Elles sont charmantes
Elles sont jolies
Elles sont les fontes colorées
Écrivons-nous, écrivons-nous
avec les fontes colorées
Parce que nous avons
et parce que nous aimons,
les belles fontes colorées!
William Overington
2 May 2014
Song about colour fonts - in French
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
Very good, William. Now all you need to do is write the music to go with it.
My French is a rather rusty — oh, all right, very rusty! — but I'm pretty sure it should be «beaucoup de» instead of «beaucoup des». Additionally, all of the French references to fonts that I've ever seen have used the word «polices»; i.e. the plural form of «(la) police (de caractère)». (My French-English dictionary tells me that «fonte» is cast iron.)
My French is a rather rusty — oh, all right, very rusty! — but I'm pretty sure it should be «beaucoup de» instead of «beaucoup des». Additionally, all of the French references to fonts that I've ever seen have used the word «polices»; i.e. the plural form of «(la) police (de caractère)». (My French-English dictionary tells me that «fonte» is cast iron.)
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 11194
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
- Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
- Contact:
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
The police is on your side.
My French is far from excellent, but our French press releases have always been written by professionals. Maybe it inspires you:
http://www.high-logic.com/press-release ... rench.html
My French is far from excellent, but our French press releases have always been written by professionals. Maybe it inspires you:
http://www.high-logic.com/press-release ... rench.html
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 2038
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
- Location: Worcestershire, England
- Contact:
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
Thank you both for replying.
The word police does seem widely used, but I have also found the following where also fonte as a feminine noun is used.
http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/font
So maybe fontes is acceptable French, even if perhaps not the main term.
It seems that the word police in English, as used for law enforcement officers, translates into French as police as well.
I looked for the sources of the words in English.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... ont?q=font
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... e?q=police
As for that it should be de rather than des I think that that might well be correct.
I think that I added an s to de so as to agree with the s added to fonte and the s added to colorée. That now appears to have been a mistake at the present moment.
Fortunately, if that turns out to be a necessary change to the lyrics it will not break the song apart and the song can go on with that change.
For this song, and for the others, I can sing them to myself privately, but I just could not even start to write them down as musical scores.
Still, one often sees with songs that one person writes the lyrics and another person writes the music and often neither of them is the performer, so all is not lost.
An interesting typographic question is as follows.
Suppose that the banner was implemented for the Tour de France, worded as follows.
5km Les belles fontes colorées 5km
What software tools are presently available to produce that banner and which font should be used for maximum effect that colour fonts are a magnificent development so that television viewers notice and remember the wording on the banner as the riders race underneath it?
Maybe there could be a static banner to be displayed near the interviewees after the race as well.
I posted a link to this thread to the OpenType mailing list, so hopefully there will be some feedback there as well.
William
The word police does seem widely used, but I have also found the following where also fonte as a feminine noun is used.
http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/font
So maybe fontes is acceptable French, even if perhaps not the main term.
It seems that the word police in English, as used for law enforcement officers, translates into French as police as well.
I looked for the sources of the words in English.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... ont?q=font
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... e?q=police
As for that it should be de rather than des I think that that might well be correct.
I think that I added an s to de so as to agree with the s added to fonte and the s added to colorée. That now appears to have been a mistake at the present moment.
Fortunately, if that turns out to be a necessary change to the lyrics it will not break the song apart and the song can go on with that change.
Well, it depends what you mean by write.Alfred wrote:Very good, William. Now all you need to do is write the music to go with it.
For this song, and for the others, I can sing them to myself privately, but I just could not even start to write them down as musical scores.
Still, one often sees with songs that one person writes the lyrics and another person writes the music and often neither of them is the performer, so all is not lost.
An interesting typographic question is as follows.
Suppose that the banner was implemented for the Tour de France, worded as follows.
5km Les belles fontes colorées 5km
What software tools are presently available to produce that banner and which font should be used for maximum effect that colour fonts are a magnificent development so that television viewers notice and remember the wording on the banner as the riders race underneath it?
Maybe there could be a static banner to be displayed near the interviewees after the race as well.
I posted a link to this thread to the OpenType mailing list, so hopefully there will be some feedback there as well.
William
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 11194
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 12:41 am
- Location: Bilthoven, The Netherlands
- Contact:
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
We've used fontes in the past:
http://www.high-logic.com/press-release ... rench.html
http://www.high-logic.com/press-release ... rench.html
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 2038
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
- Location: Worcestershire, England
- Contact:
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
However, thinking about it later, I am now thinking that des might be correct.William wrote: As for that it should be de rather than des I think that that might well be correct.
I think that I added an s to de so as to agree with the s added to fonte and the s added to colorée. That now appears to have been a mistake at the present moment.
Beaucoup des fontes colorées
I am thinking that
Beaucoup des fontes colorées
is
Beaucoup "of the" fontes colorées
yet the French would not say
Beaucoup "de les" fontes colorées
but rather
Beaucoup des fontes colorées
in a similar manner that although they say
de la
they do not say
de le
but say
du
instead.
Upon reflection, I think that I probably did not conciously add an s to de but rather just used des on instinct, as if when I learned French that construction had just been stored away.William wrote: I think that I added an s to de so as to agree with the s added to fonte and the s added to colorée. That now appears to have been a mistake at the present moment.
Maybe from something like the following.
Nous mangeons beaucoup des légumes.
Yet maybe either de or des is possible?
William
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
The word fontes appears only three times in that article, but the word police appears twenty-four times.Erwin Denissen wrote:We've used fontes in the past:
http://www.high-logic.com/press-release ... rench.html
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
Yes, either one is possible: it depends what you're trying to say. As you correctly observed, 'des' is a contraction of 'de les', so you might say «Nous avons quelques légumes. Nous mangeons beaucoup des légumes.» In this example, you would be saying 'many of the vegetables'; if you simply wanted to say 'many vegetables' you would say «beaucoup de légumes».William wrote:Yet maybe either de or des is possible?
-
- Top Typographer
- Posts: 2038
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
- Location: Worcestershire, England
- Contact:
Re: Song about colour fonts - in French
Here is the pdf publication version of the song.
It is typeset using one of my own fonts, Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady, that I made using FontCreator.
William Overington
12 May 2014
It is typeset using one of my own fonts, Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady, that I made using FontCreator.
William Overington
12 May 2014