[Inyo-Mono]

Yes, English has degraded since personal computers become common. As a professional graphic artist and typesetter in the 1970s and early '80s, I see that everyone now uses the word "font," as seen on computers, when the correct word is "typeface." A font like italics is a derivative, or subset, of a typeface like Courier.

[Nailbiter]

learned something new- and I am old enough to know better

[firebrand]

But proofreaders mark it wf, in either case.

[cynwoody]

As a professional graphic artist and typesetter in the 1970s and early '80s, I see that everyone now uses the word "font," as seen on computers, when the correct word is "typeface." A font like italics is a derivative, or subset, of a typeface like Courier.

That's backwards. "Font" is the general term. A "typeface" is a specific instance of a font, such as Courier at a specific size, say 16pt, a specific style, say italic, a specific weight, say bold. The font definition will contain rules for how to shape the characters, given such parameters. A font is what you select, the typeface is what you see, given all your settings applied together.

That's why you download, install, and select fonts, not typefaces. That's why there are websites like Identifont.

Text presentation is a complex topic. And that's without getting into issues such as character spacing, character direction, line spacing, paragraph justification, etc.

We've come a long way since typesetting on Linotype.