The end of self-evidence

ICAB

Three type designers walk into a bar in Munich. They traveled to Germany to talk about type at a conference which was organized for this occasion. They wear jeans & sneakers and under their jackets, black t-shirts with big white letters. Each of them is wearing another letter. They take a seat at the counter and look for somebody to take their order. One of them raises his hand to get someone’s attention. The barkeeper notices, walks over to the guys, looks at their shirts and asks them: ‘So guys, are you HOT?’ The three buddies look confused. They are puzzled. The German and the Finnish guy stare at the Dutch guy, and the Dutch guy stares at the Finnish guy. At that moment, two of them discover the misunderstanding. In perfect synchronization, the German and Finnish make a gesture: they hold their left hand close to their neck, and swipe down the other hand in front of their torso, pinching together their thumb and index finger. It looks like they are drawing a vertical straight line with an invisible pen from their neck to their belly button. After looking down at his shirt, the Dutch guy understands what the other two guys just explained. He takes off his jacket, put it on the bar stool, and concludes ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have chosen a slab-serif font for the shirts.’ The barkeeper looks again at the three guys and acknowledges: ‘Ah HOI! You must be from the Netherlands.’ The three guys laugh out loud. Apparently, the words meant something different to them than to the barkeeper. Not able to talk, the Dutch guy orders three beers, by raising his hand and stretching out his thumb, index finger and middle finger. Talking about letters all day has made them thirsty.

TAUTOLOGY OF TYPOGRAPHY

A letter is a letter because it is readable for us as a letter. And because it is readable for us as a letter, it is a letter. So in that way, you could state that either every letter is readable. Or, more radical: everything is a letter. And we are a pen. Whereby some letters are semic (readable) and other are asemic (unreadable, the letters we do not know yet). So everything we do is writing. And depending on our agreements about the systems of writing, the writing will be either accepted as something meaningful or nonsense. Which could be also regarded as mystical. Writing by hand combines these dimensions, by bringing together the mystical and semantical. They co-exist because writing by hand is doing two things at the same time: composing and shaping letters synchronously. And while this may sound strange at first sight, it is above all the mystical dimension, which still matters most in daily life. To make agreement official between human beings, it is not so much the composition of the type, but its formal aspect, which validates signatures.

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THOUGHT

While most people understand that Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type lies at the base of the knowledge society we are living in today, because it was introducing portable, repeatable and uniform language—books, printed with moveable type—only a few people realize that by doing that, he also anesthetized the written word. While writing with a pen allows the author to always differentiate between one a and another a, this feature had to be eliminated, to make Gutenberg’s invention possible.

And while Gutenberg’s discovery had a significant impact on the distribution of human thoughts, the typewriter did the same for its production some 300 years later. Although the content of Gutenberg’s books was based on hand-written manuscripts, it was from 1865 not the hand, but the machine, which was putting human thinking on paper. In that way, you could argue that from a cultural point of view, the invention of the typewriter is at least as essential as Gutenberg’s moveable type for the development of our society. While Gutenberg was typifying the distribution of thoughts, the typewriter did the same for its manifestation. After the invention of the typewriter, it was not humans but machines which were actually writing on paper.

For many people, it may not seem to be a big difference between writing a word with a pen or with a typewriter. But this may not be the case if you ask them to write an emoji. Because there is (still) a big difference for us between creating a smiley or a word by hand. The first is perceived as drawing, the second as writing. But at the same moment, we do not see any difference between the two, by using a machine, like a laptop or a smartphone. Both visual forms are produced identically, by pushing a button. But also technically, both are identical. They are code-points in the Unicode, representing a piece of semantic information. Fig. 1 Introduced in October 1991, the consortium describes their mission on their website as follows: Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.¹ So in that way, Unicode not only provides a system of unique numbers for letters, but also for words, sentences, and whole stories. Like this one: 84-104-105-115-32-105-115-32-110-111-116-32-97-110-32-65-46.

So if we agree that all natural numbers exist, because they are based on a certain logic, we may also conclude that all possible texts exist with the grace of the alphabet. We only have to point to a specific number, and we get a unique text. This makes writing with machines (typography) implicitly different to writing by hand (chirography). While the first one allows us to produce original content (numbers which have not been allocated by other writers before), it is only within chirography where we can be truly ‘orginär’ (authentic). Because it is only in this system that we are able—to a certain extent—to create our own alphabet. And while there has always been a strict separation between the two, everything may change sooner than expected.

In short, the bottom line is that OpenType Variable Fonts in particular differs from the current font formats, because it can contain various, related fonts in one font. As it were, OpenType Variable Fonts are a whole family of letters in a single font. Pragmatically, the OpenType Variable Fonts stem from the desire to be able to send fonts to a browser more quickly, so that the user—a reader—has less trouble with FOUT & FOIT (Flash of Unstyled/Invisible Text). This is an effect that occurs when a website wants to use its own fonts, and a font file has to be downloaded from a server for that purpose. Due to this, there is a moment when the font in which the text will be shown, is not yet available for the browser. There are two solutions to this problem: FOUT, during which the text is shown in advance in another font, until the desired font has been downloaded. Due to this, the text is immediately visible, but the font suddenly changes. The other solution is FOIT, during which the text remains invisible until the font is available. Research has shown that for both solutions the speed with which a text appears in its final form, is of crucial influence to the user’s experience. Apparently, the difference hereby is determined on the level of milliseconds. Every byte counts. That is why these big companies invented OpenType Variable Fonts.

However, on an abstract level the technology also implies that OpenType Variable Fonts make fonts variable, which is implicitly mentioned in the name. The underlying trick to be able to send the fonts to the user more quickly, is based on the simple calculation that less data is needed when determining only one outline for a font, than when sending two separate fonts that have their own outline. During which subsequently it must be further defined, how these can be adjusted to another letter shape. You can compare it with a circular tour. The trip Amsterdam – New York – Amsterdam – San Francisco – Amsterdam, is much more effective when you go straight from New York to San Francisco. While you can always say about a digital letter that it only exists once it is displayed, it even goes a step further in case of the variable fonts. A letter of a variable font can only be displayed when it is calculated. And just like there is an unlimited amount of subdivisions between the 0 and the 1, this is also the case for a letter in a variable font. Each variable font contains an endless amount of intermediate fonts. It is up to the type designer to determine how the font changes. From thin to thick, from thick to thicker, from narrow to wide, from serif to sans serif, from angular to round, from a lot of contrast to little contrast. But also, provided that a type designer feels like it, from A to O. Because the contour of the letter is dynamic, the shape of the letter is also dynamic. This dynamification of the letter shape means that this development is significantly different to all other typographic developments over the past 500 years. Up till now, the shape of a letter was inviolable. A letter was just a letter. Definitive in its shape. Static to time: it remains the same, now, in the past and in the future. The letter was timeless. A letter was a thing that was fixed and could never change. Just like all the books with letters that were printed over the past 500 years.

But what appeared to be obvious for us up till now —the shape of a letter—has come to an end thanks to OpenType Variable Fonts. While, up till now, letters were obvious in both a literal and a figurative sense, this can be completely different in the future. Then a letter now will be different than later. And since this is in complete contradiction to our ideas about letters, it is also so difficult to depict this at this moment. It seems impossible: a situation in which A = O. Even though we now have this technology that makes it actually possible.

Variable fonts relate to the fonts that we mainly use in the year 2018, just like the Internet relates to traditional books. And just like the dynamisation of information by means of the technology of the Internet has unexpectedly transformed all aspects of our daily life over the past 20 years, the dynamisation of the letter shape will also without a doubt have such unexpected consequences. Moreover, we have to realize that people have never really been able to predict the socio-cultural consequences of technological developments. Not in the case of the Internet, and not in the case of variable fonts. And since this time it is about the existential materials of our existence, namely typified language, there’s a good chance that this transformation will be much larger than ever before. For us, it is impossible to depict the results of this case, just like it was impossible, 20 years ago, to predict the ultimate influence of the Internet. This is what Søren Kierkegaard said about this issue: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” In short: insight always works backwards, never forwards.

ONE TO ONE

There is a cartoon where a bartender asks a customer what beer he would like. The customer replies “IPA please”, to which the barkeeper says: [wɒt bɪə wəd jʊ laɪk]? While for most jokes it is important that they are told in the right way, this one needs typographic skills. Not only for telling the joke, but especially for understanding it and finding it funny. First of all, we have to know that IPA is not only an acronym for “Indian Pale Ale”, but also “International Phonetic Alphabet”. And then we also need to be capable of reading IPA to understand that “what beer would you like?” & [wɒt bɪə wəd jʊ laɪk]? are saying the same thing. One in written language, the other in written-spoken language using IPA.

There is also this story of a German guy who, during a meeting, asked the others: [duː juː nəʊtaʁ͡tsaːn]? And because nobody understood what he was talking about, he asked it again [duː juː nəʊtaʁtsaːn]? But again, he was confronted with confused faces, wide eyes, speechless people. And in order to finally create clarity, he asked: [duː juː nəʊ Aaaaahhhh/ uohuoh/ uohuoh/]? To which the others reply, spontaneously, and clearly relieved in particular: [oʊjuː miːn ˈtɑːz.n].

Apparently, words exist which we do not know how to pronounce. And words of which we do not even know how we should write them at all. How would you write the yell of Tarzan? In the official document containing the trade mark bearing the numbers 2210506,² 3841800³ and 4462890,⁴ with which Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in 1998, 2010 and 2014 respectively officially registered the Tarzan yell™, one can read the following about the mark:

The mark is a yell consisting of a series of approximately ten sounds, alternating between the chest and falsetto registers of the voice, as follows:

1. a semi-long sound in the chest register,

2. a short sound up an interval of one octave plus a fifth from the preceding sound,

3. a short sound down a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

4. a short sound up a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

5. a long sound down one octave plus a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

6. a short sound up one octave from the preceding sound,

7. a short sound up a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

8. a short sound down a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

9. a short sound up a Major 3rd from the preceding sound,

10. a long sound down an octave plus a fifth from the preceding sound.
    And the notation is: Fig. 2

Yet, an official spelling of the yell does not seem to exist. But when do we start to accept sounds as words? What is the difference between making a sound and pronouncing a word? When does a child say its first word? Are these the sounds that sound like [məˈmɑː]? And if so, what were all sounds made before that? Language or not a language? Somehow, it seems fairly logical that the language can exist without any form of notation. But if indeed words exist without having letters, how do these words come about? Is Tarzan’s yell a word in his own language, the Tarzan language? And if we truly accept it as a word, do translations of this word exist? Or could it be that no other language has a satisfactory translation for the Tarzan yell? Like there is no English translation for the German word Schrift? Commonly used translations are: scripture, font, typeface, writing, document, script, handwriting, type, work, paper, report, print, notation, leaflet, petition, and tract. And while the meaning of the German word Schrift is obvious for every German, most of them seem to find it difficult to express it in words. It is easier within a written text: Schrift is, among other things, that what you are looking at right now. And what are you looking at?

You could ask yourself what precisely the Tarzan yell is. For some people, it could come across as absurd to define the Tarzan yell as an own language. Even more so because in this case, we would be talking about a one word language. But there are actually languages that show that this does not necessarily have to be a problem. Try looking up OWL online⁵; the One Word Language that consists of one word only and nevertheless offers the possibility of expressing everything. And if we accept the Tarzan language as a language, then indeed this language is spoken by a large part of the world population. Try it for yourself: if your speaking partner understands you immediately, then ask him or her in particular if they know the original story about Tarzan. Chances are likely that they do not.

This story, published for the first time in 1912 in the All-Story Magazine, broadly is as follows. In 1888, by order of the British Colonial Secretary, John Clayton and Lady Alice depart by boat from Dover to Africa. Their destination is British West-Africa, but due to mutiny they never arrive at their journey’s end. Somewhere halfway they are left behind on a deserted beach, with all their belongings, including a large collection of books. Then everything that should happen, happens. The man builds a hut, and the woman gives birth to a child. Shortly after the birth the woman dies, and not much later the man is murdered by a group of great apes that raids the small house. The baby, Tarzan, is spared and taken by the apes, and grows up with the apes in the primary forest.

Many years later, Tarzan accidently discovers his destroyed parental home and finds the children’s books that his far-sighted parents had taken along. These books contain simple drawings and large signs. And although Tarzan as expected immediately recognizes what the images show, the abstract forms next to the images are initially a big mystery to him. To him these abstract forms look like large insects. But clever as he is, he pretty soon discovers the underlying logic of these forms. And with this discovery, he manages to learn how to read and write. At the time, for Tarzan the language exists purely visually. A silent language. Later in the story, when Tarzan knows how to fluently read and write (in English), he comes into contact with other people for the first time. These people are passengers from a ship who discover Tarzan on the island. As Tarzan is only able to use written language, he communicates with pen and paper. And at that point in the story, Tarzan’s author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, thinks up a genius linguistic trick. Instead of an English speaking interlocutor, he chooses a French speaking sailor, resulting in the seemingly bizarre situation that Tarzan learns to pronounce words such as “apple” as [pɔm], “window” as [fənɛtʁ] and “same” as [kɔm]. At the time, for Tarzan A = [ɔ] applies.

A AND O

An alphabet always has a beginning and an end. This becomes very clear in the saying about the alpha and the omega, also known as the A and O, with which we want to emphasize the completeness of a subject. This saying refers to the last book of the New Testament (Book of Revelation), in which it is used for the comprehensiveness of God, and in particular of Christ. Alpha and omega are the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet. Among other things, this refers to the fact that written language was at first used to document harvesting and herds. That’s why the first letter in the Phoenician alphabet was the aleph; a sign with which the head of a cow was imitated. However, for the Phoenicians the aleph was not a consonant, but a glottal stop. A glottal stop is a consonant that in Dutch is not written as a separate letter, but that resounds when the vocal cords shut up, right before we pronounce a vowel. When the Greeks took over the alphabet of the Phoenicians, in 900 B.C., they changed one essential aspect: the vowels were given a function that was comparable to the function of the consonants. The vowels were no longer indicated with weird diacritical characters, but were given their own, full form that was comparable to the form of the consonants. The Greeks especially lacked a letter for the [ɔ] sound, the long o, which is why they added an omega. And because the Greeks for the larger part maintained the sequence of the Phoenician alphabet, this new letter was added at the end of the alphabet. Considering this, the statement of “the A and O” does not seem to fit in within the Latin alphabet, or seems to be—at the very least—a striking translation, comparable with that of the very first sentence of the Bible. As most of us will know, the first sentence of the Bible reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Linguistic research has shown that in the original version, which was written in the Old Greek language, the word Λόγος (lógos) was used. A word that, according to the same research, rather means “spirit” than “word”. But apart from the difference between spirit and word, this fact particularly shows how important the language within the Bible is. At the same time, the Bible is, as any other book, part of something bigger, because it only exists within our language. Written with letters, printed on paper. And while the alpha and omega are the symbols for the comprehensiveness, the beginning and the end, language in itself is endless. Whereas two numbers (the 0 and the 1) are sufficient to create a virtual reality such as the Internet, the possibilities for our 26 letters seem to be infinitive.

A simple trick to get a better understanding of things (or as is said in English; “to get a grip on something”), is looking at a specific subject or object from a viewpoint of different languages. Or in other words: to translate the word or subject. Look for example at the noun “self-evidence”; Dutch uses the word vanzelfsprekendheid and in Germany the term is die Selbstverständlichkeit. And while you could say that these three words identify three different things: “something that possesses a certain evidence”, “something that speaks for itself” and “something that stands on itself”, together these three concepts form a better framework for the underlying concept than that each of the concepts individually does. They reinforce each other because they do not contradict each other. Together they provide us with a better image of what the actual meaning of the concept could be. And when we reflect on this, it occurs that this definition also applies to written language. Writing as we know it, use it, and are reading right now.

1. A text is evident, because it is what it is. Look at this sentence. The only reason why this sentence can reference to itself, is because of the evidence it has. If it would not be evident, it would not be possible to refer to itself.

2. A text speaks for itself because we fix spoken language on paper by means of the letters, words and sentences. It is a sort of visual recording of the spoken language.

3. A text stands on itself, because we speak for the language. In the beginning reading was always a loud reading. And it is still the case that when we read, we speak to ourselves.

And if you look in a German dictionary under the word Schrift, you will also discover a number of interesting nouns, such as: Schriftwart, Schriftsetzer and Schriftsteller. That the word Schriftleser does not exist shows once more the self-evidence of the written word. Within the philosophical movement of the linguistic turn, from the early 20th century various scientists have shown to what extent language determines our construction of reality. While many people consider Wittgenstein as one of the fathers of this movement, it was the German writer and philosopher Fritz Mauthner in particular, with his three-part Beiträge zu eine Kritik der Sprache in 1901, who laid the foundations for this. In the reprint of Ullstein Materialien from 1982, the three volumes together come to almost 2100 pages! Tractatus logico-philosophicus by Wittgenstein, published 21 years later, is only 110 pages (edition Suhrkamp, 36. Auflage 2016). Even though Mauthner is reasonably accessible and the Tractatus is mainly incomprehensible, the book by Wittgenstein is far more well-known. Mauthner writes in his book: “Der Mensch hat in seiner Sprache die Welt nach seinem INTERESSE geordnet”.⁶ Wittgenstein responds to this in his publication with: “Satz 4.0031 Alle Philosophie ist ‘Sprachkritik.’ (Allerdings nicht im Sinne Mauthners.)”⁷ For his book, Wittgenstein chose a semi-logical set-up, in which an apparently logical numbering gives structure to the story. Point 1.1 is an addition to point 1, and point 1.11 is an interpretation of point 1.1. However, upon further inspection, it turns out that this numbering is not always correct, which remains one of the many mysteries surrounding the book. Nevertheless, thanks to the numbering, it is possible to summarize the book in a simple way:

1. The world is all that is the case.

2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

6. The general form of a truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general form of a proposition.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

Perhaps it is due to this last sentence in particular that the Tractatus has become so well- known over the years. Recently, the author of an article in Der Spiegel about the socio-cultural meaning of emojis, came back to this passage. He puts forward the position that emojis enable us to talk about things which previously had to remain hidden. Emojis are part of the Unicode, the organization which gives all the written characters on earth a number, so that we can communicate with each other in different languages and scripts. Once a character has been included by Unicode, it becomes a recognized text element. This makes emojis an official part of our written culture. Various planes exist within Unicode on which various types of characters and scripts are located. The emojis are on the “Supplementary Multilingual Plane”, a section of various characters, such as Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols, modern musical notations, Dominoes and thus also emojis. Yes, in addition to emojis, musical notations have become an official part of our language. As a result, we can now also work out the official spelling of Tarzan’s yell. You only have to combine the previously shown notation with the Unicode characters shown on Fig. 1. But back to emojis. The greatest limitation of emoji is currently perhaps that what you just did (or did not do) with the musical notation is not possible in practice with emojis. They are prescribed words, both literally and figuratively. Literally because, just like words, they also often consist of separate parts. Just look at this list with the smileys that are available nowadays.

😀 Grinning Face, 😁 Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes, 😂 Face with Tears of Joy, 😃 Smiling Face with Open Mouth, 😄 Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Smiling Eyes,😅 Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Cold Sweat, 😆 Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Tightly-Closed Eyes, 😇 Smiling Face with Halo, 😈 Smiling Face with Horns, 😉 Winking Face, 😊 Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes, 😋 Face Savoring Delicious Food, 😌 Relieved Face, 😍 Smiling Face, with Heart-Shaped Eyes Smiling, 😎 Face with Sunglasses, 😏 Smirking Face, 😐 Neutral Face, 😑 Expressionless Face, 😒 Unamused Face, 😓 Face with Cold Sweat Pensive, 😕 Face Confused, 😖 Face Confounded, 😗 Kissing Face, 😘 Face Throwing a Kiss, 😙 Kissing Face with Smiling Eyes, 😚 Kissing Face with Closed Eyes, 😛 Face with Stuck-Out Tongue, 😜 Face with Stuck-Out Tongue and Winking Eye, 😝 Face with Stuck-Out Tongue and Tightly-Closed Eyes.

With a textual summary such as this, you immediately see the problem with emojis. What will you do if you wish to communicate Grinning Face with Horns instead of Smiling Face with Horns? You can think of plenty of situations where precisely a grinning face and not a smiling face is the right emoji. Finding the correct words is sometimes difficult, and finding the correct emoji is apparently often impossible. Our emoji vocabulary is determined by the emoji council within the Unicode consortium. This “emoji council” is currently chaired by Google software developer Mark Davis, with Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia and journalist Jennifer 8. Lee as vice-chairs. And if you search for “Rejected Emoji Proposals” online, you will find all kinds of lists of emojis which were not allowed to become part of our language.⁸ These include Smiling Face with Hand Putting on Makeup, Happy Face with Lightbulb, Angry Pile of Poo, Expressionless Face with Bruises and Bandage and Face Covered with Black Mask with Eyes and Mouth Exposed.

In 2011, immediately after his appointment as governor in Florida, Rick Scott introduced the law that the press were no longer allowed to use the letters space, latin small letter c, latin small letter l, latin small letter i, latin small letter m, latin small letter a, latin small letter t, latin small letter e, space, latin small letter c, latin small letter h, latin small letter a, latin small letter n, latin small letter g, latin small letter e, space in this order in the media.⁹ A ban is definitely not the same as a conscious or unconscious limitation. However, in practice, it boils down to the same thing. One is an active censure and the other is a passive censure. From that viewpoint, we should not be against new emojis, but precisely in favor of them. For their freedom to be allowed to be everything. It is only then that we can say again what we want to say. Now it is not our own vocabulary that we are using but the vocabulary of someone else. However, as we have already seen, it is now only a question of time before everything works out. The reason is that with OpenType Variable Fonts, variable emoji fonts will undoubtedly also emerge. And then we will not only have letters that write themselves, and letters A which change into an O, but also emojis which can be confused face and confounded.

2041

It remains difficult to predict the socio-cultural significance of the dynamification of letters. Perhaps it is even impossible to do that within the area of the statistical characters. As long as we use letters, such as these ones here, they will also form the framework that determines everything. The framework within which we think, express ourselves, communicate and act. Under point 5.6, Wittgenstein writes in the Tractatus logico-philosphicus, “Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt”. But is it not also the case that the boundaries of the Sprache are determined by the characters on which the language is based?

Perhaps there is more hidden in the dynamification of the letter than we are capable of thinking. Perhaps it has to do with our software: our way of thinking. Perhaps it also has to do with our hardware: our brain was not made for this. Because a dynamic letter can lead to a different language, this could also lead to another world. A world which is fundamentally different to the one that we now know and describe. Perhaps the words and terms that are needed in order to be able to include this do not exist in the language in which we now live. The year 1996 is meanwhile known as the start of the Internet, and since that time that has fundamentally changed practically all the aspects of our daily lives. Perhaps in 2041 we will conclude that the year 2018 was the time when the variable letter was born, by means of which a new world began to emerge. And then we will look back on the year 2018 as the time when everything was different. The time when letters were static, and things could be self-evident. When 18≠96 was.

Perhaps in 2041 we will realize that every form of self-evidence never really existed. That the actual invention by Gutenberg was not the uniform, repetitive and allographic letter (the typification of language), but the simulation of the self-evidence. The inventor of something which misled us for 500 years, because it showed us the world as much too unequivocal. Perhaps we will look back on 2018 as the age when mankind still believed blindly in the power of letters, and the potential of a text. The time when we realize that we are perhaps not the text, but just a letter.

MUNICH

The type designers order another round of beer. Between all the empty glasses, there are some small purple booklets in front of them. They are the last copies of a little publication they wrote, typeset, printed and handed out at the conference they were talking at. The cover says The end of self-evidence. One of them picks up a copy and flicks through the pages. He stops at the penultimate page. With his index finger, he is trying to point to the bottom of the page. The effect of the beers is apparent.

The Dutch and the Finnish guy stare at their nearly empty glasses. The German guy, who was silently following the whole discussion while drawing on a piece of paper that he found in his pocket, enters the dialog. He puts down the pen and shows the other two what he was thinking while they were talking. All three look at the drawing and agree with a nodding smile. They finish their beer and decide to go home.

The English tourist looks at the paper and tries to understand. He takes the pen and adds four uppercase letters. He looks at the paper, thinks and starts to smile. Apparently, the letters were just telling something different than we had written down before. He looks at his watch and decides to order another beer.