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> Some of the other commas in the article are also wrong in the same and similar ways. I’m curious whether there might be something about comma usage or sentence structure in the native language of the author, which I’m guessing isn’t English. (There are a few other mildly unusual or clumsy word choices and sentence structures, and a few minor errors.)

Yes this translation from German. The comma fits the way German grammar recommends it. Some other clues: DIN is a German standard organization and the company advertising this new font is a German Ltd (GmbH).

Perhaps the translator was American. A lot of American text looks like a pepper shaker full off commas was upended over it.

At least we don't have all these 'u's polluting our words! I'll die before I spell 'color' differently!

:)

It's fairly obviously primarily targetting a German market. There are no French and Spanish versions, and I suspect that the English version is there as the fallback for whatever international market there is.

The German language version has fewer commas:

* https://www.linotype.com/de/6990/din-1450.html

I wonder how badly Hacker News would have coped with a submission in German. (-:

"Schriften von Monotype, die speziell an diese Empfehlungen angepasst wurden, tragen den Namenszusatz „1450“."

> “Monotype fonts which have been specially adapted to these recommendations carry the name affix "1450".”

Even this isn't wholly clear. They should have said:

> “Monotype fonts that have been specially adapted to these recommendations carry the name affix "1450".”

The word “that” defines the subject of the sentence; the word “which” describes the already-defined subject. This is a rule of thumb usually expressed as: “‘that’ defines; ‘which’ describes”.

cf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36092771

If we're going to be pedantic about language use (and it appears that we are): "cf" is short for the Latin for "compare [with]". To me, that only makes sense when the reference is something very analogous, e.g. you're talking about caramelising onions and you cite an article about caramelising carrots. Most of the time it's used, including this time, it would be more appropriate to just say "see also".

This entire thread is peak HN lmao

TIL — going forward I'll use see for 'compare' and cf for 'contrast'

Or use 'nb' - nota bene

Monotype "1450" fonts are specially adapted to these recommendations.

The commas around the “which” clause seem to follow German rules for embedded subordinate clauses:

https://www.germanveryeasy.com/comma

As this sentence immediately follows a paragraph introducing the new standard, I would probably go with something like "The affix '1450' is used to designate those monotype fonts which have been specially adapted to these recommendations."

Now I am wondering if the different rules for verb placement in German and English contribute to the difficulty of punctuating translations unambiguously.

They're using the words "Monotype Fonts" as a type shop, a brand, a company...I forget which but I set type decades ago and remember the name. They're not referring to 'monotype fonts' as a type of font, like serif or sans serif.

I feel the issue applies in this case also, unless all of Monotype Fonts' fonts are DIN 1450 fonts.

Perhaps because nouns are usually capitalized in German.

Seriously tho, does it really matter that much? There are native English speakers who write worse than that.

It matters that if you are writing illegibly even the ultra legible typeface is not going to help that much

Even worse, when reading this sentence in the comments, I thought it was referring to monospace coding fonts, which happen to share the same "legibility features" as required by DIN 1450 (tailed l, dotted 0, etc.)

What you're seeing here is absolutely English written by a German. In German, restrictive clauses are separated by commas. This language feature seeps into English written by Germans by means of interference.

the only extraneous comma is after "affix"

No, the first two commas are extraneous as well.

From https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-of-essen... :

> Essential clauses modify key words and are important to the main point of a sentence. Nonessential clauses provide superfluous information that, while interesting, does not change the main point of a sentence. Nonessential clauses are offset by punctuation such as commas or parentheses to indicate the clause as an aside.

With the commas, it is a nonessential clause, which means the meaning should stay the same if it is removed. And that would turn the sentence into this:

> Monotype fonts carry the name affix "1450".

But that isn't the meaning of the sentence. It's not true that Monotype fonts (all of them, in general) have "1450" in their names. Only the ones that follow the recommendation do.

This is the kind of assertive falseness I associate with ChatGPT!