"cursivy" transformation

Neither “cursivy” nor “cursify” (as the Transformations dialog used to say) is a real world so far as I can tell, but I’d say it’s easier to tell what is intended by “cursify” than by “cursivy.” Even though “cursive” has a “v,” “-fy” is recognizable as an action suffix (like “classify,” “terrify,” “identify,” “simplify,” etc.) whereas “-vy” isn’t. In fact “-vy” words in English tend to be pronounced with a long e rather than long i sound (“gravy,” “envy,” “privy,” “skivvy,” etc.) which I think is not what is intended here. I’d suggest going back to “cursify” (or finding another word).

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In such cases, using a different verb is often the best option, such as “Make Cursive”.

Going through the new G3 Manual and found this discrepancy still exists.

Transformations Section, pp74:
Transformations palette image shows “Cursivy”; text says “Cursify”. In the app itself, “Cursivy”.

This is such a small error that I thought it might be fixed by now.

Thank you for bringing this up again; it’s fixed in the next issue.

How about Cursivify?

Analogously to Passive → Passivify.

Perhaps @Bendy and @Evertype want to chime in?

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This is the correct form. Passive + the productive -fy ending would be correct for this word. Compare also vivify and revivify. The OED attests revivify from 1631 to 2001.

Welcome to the forum, @Evertype, nice to have you here!

May I add Merriam-Webster links for reference:

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Instead of an obscure word form, why not label it what it is – Optical Slant?

::eta:: And… the latest manual I can find still has cursify. (December 2021).

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:musical_note:Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re going to cursify me🎵

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I would argue that you can find a morphological rule that results in Cursify:
Phonetic: […] → […ɪfaɪ]
Category: noun → verb
Semantic: Nb → Process of turning something into Nb

Examples, off the top of my head:
ADJECTIVE → ADJECTIFY
SUBSTANTIVE → SUBSTANTIFY

Some examples where the semantics don’t match:
INCENTIVE → INCENTIFY
OBJECTIVE → OBJECTIFY

Sadly, PASSIVE → PACIFY doesn’t work :wink:

I’m not familiar with English morphology and phonology, probably the [s] before the -ive dictates a different formation than what I outlined. But as a native speaker, I would consider Cursify to be the most natural-sounding name, even though it might technically not be correct.

Has anyone already mentioned that the tool doesn’t even make anything cursive? :upside_down_face:

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Good point @alexs; having it as an option with that name could tend to imply it would make a roman such as Helvetica into a connected handwriting style, which is the educational definition of cursive.

When I first saw the word years ago I had to check the manual to determine what it did do.

Today I still vote for calling it what it does, which is partial optical correction to a geometric slant operation, shortened to Optical Slant. That way the user would have two obvious choices for producing a slant.

+1 for optical slant. Inventing words doesn’t seem helpful for non-native English speakers, even if they’re morphologically correct :slight_smile:

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Optical Slant sounds good.

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Oh ugh. “Optical slant” is no different from “Slant”. Fontlab called it “slant”. And “optical slant” isn’t very helpful to native English speakers either. It’s just more technobabble. It’s not being done by eye anyway, but by algorithm.

“Cursify” [ˈkərsɪˌfaɪ] means to make something into a curse. “Cursivy” [ˈkərsɪvi] means “cursive-ish, cursive-like”. Cursivify [kərˈsɪvɪˌfaɪ] means to make something cursive.

I vote for optical slant too. Yes, it’s not doing what it promises, but neither does “cursify”. But it’s better to label it by intention. Improving the algorithm is a separate discussion (seems pretty hard, almost impossible in my opinion though).

According to what, exactly? These are invented words, you can follow whatever morphological rule you want (and, as I pointed out, there is one that holds up for “Cursify”). Since it is morphologically valid, and a lot less ridiculous-sounding than “Cursivify” (which may technically be more correct), I don’t see why it is not a valid choice of terminology.

All words are invented. “Cursivify” is no more “ridiculous-sounding” than “revivify” which has been attested in use for 392 years. “Cursify” can only mean “to make into a curse” or perhaps “to festoon with curses”. This is English morphology. I am quite sure you can learn to put up with it.

Thanks for your advice, I’ll be happy to put up with it. What morphological rule are you applying? Apologies, I only learnt French morphology (lexeme approach). What I meant by invented (and I’m sure you know this is what I meant), is that the terms you proposed are not attested for anywhere, but are freely formed following existing morphology.

I don’t see how Cursify “can only mean ‘to make into a curse’”. Who dictates this? Have you considered the formation rule I proposed earlier? I’m very happy to peruse any references you might have on English morphology, as I’m happy to learn. But, quite frankly, I don’t see what is wrong with using a freely invented term that still very closely follows established morphology. In the context of Glyphs, I sincerely doubt anybody will click on the button thinking it will transform the outlines into a curse.

Well… :slight_smile: but it could be done with a plug-in.