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From the article: > A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Cali
by moltopoco 9mo ago
From the article:
> A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces.
> "To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface," the cable said.
I don't read that purely as an "anti-woke" move, why did Reuters only highlight that part and not the bit about professionalism? I do indeed agree that serifs look more authoritative.
- Intermernet 9mo agoAuthoritative or Authoritarian?
- mr_toad 9mo agoFasces or fascist?
- moltopoco 9mo agoYes, a true "mask-off moment": I do find that classic LaTeX papers look more trustworthy than whatever MS Word outputs by default. Associating TNR with authoritarianism would not even be historically accurate, because many authoritarians pushed to simplify writing (Third Reich, Soviets, CCP); if anything, TNR looks _conservative_, which is probably the look that Rubio is going for.
- oneeyedpigeon 9mo agoBecause, even if there is a good argument to replace Calibri on grounds of professionalism, the cable still explicitly mentions the "anti-woke" aspect. At best, it's another sideswipe aimed at minorities and people who represent them. At worst, it's 'doing something wrong purely because of prejudice'.
- moltopoco 9mo agoThe cable makes the claim that Calibri did not actually help anyone, and even backs up this claim with numbers. So how is it aimed at minorities? Who is prejudiced against people with bad eyesight? https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/12/state-department-return-to-tradition.text https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/12/state-department-ret... I don't usually go back to comments from seven days ago, but I missed the full memo being on DF. The sideswipe at the previous administration is childish, sure. But the way in which Reuters has portrayed this memo is even more shocking to me after reading it. Holy culture war partisanship, batman.
- Zanfa 9mo ago> To restore decorum and professionalism Given the complete absence of either in the current administration, this is clearly not the real reason. So “woke” is the only explanation left.
- Propelloni 9mo agoIf it is about professionalism, why mention DEIA at all? It's just virtue-signalling. Reuters realized that and pointed it out.
- hopelite 9mo ago[flagged]
- ondra 9mo ago> It was Blinken that arbitrarily introduced The _second paragraph_ of TFA gives a reason for the introduction. Please explain how you came to the conclusion that the change was arbitrary.
- hopelite 9mo agoThe definition of “arbitrary” includes “upon personal whim”, i.e., the State Dept leadership, not coordinated across or with other depts, and “not in a systematic manner”. I get that people’s biases make accepting reality difficult, but this will all end poorly if you can’t even just be objective on basic things like it being detrimental for one single department of the federal government to arbitrarily change rather significant things like the official font, even worn text, communication is the primary work product and format. Why did you ignore all the other aspects and simply latch onto something you thought was a loophole because you cannot objectively adapt a relevant definition? This is not reddit. You should have higher standards for yourself.