Wrestling can be a good tool for learning and Wrestlers can be great teachers too. Scott Steiner can teach you his special brand of Mathematics; CM Punk can teach you the do’s and don’ts of Grammar. We learned something about typography when we ate at La Cafe de la Esquina, a Mexican themed restaurant littered with homages to both wrestling and lucha libre. Seriously, their logo is a luchador mask. In the bathroom, they have a poster of “The Five Typographic Terms using Mexican Wrestling as a Visual Simile.”
Here is a definition of each of the terms. We used clean version of Armin Vit‘s design since someone either really loves graffiti or really doesn’t like kerning. Also, to balance all the learning going on, we we tried to describe and name the wrestling maneuvers illustrated.
x-height (n.): The height of lower case letters of a typeface, without ascenders or descenders. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font.
Wrestling definition:
It looks like a combination of Doink the Clown’s Stump Puller, and a corkscrew opening a wine bottle. Let’s call it: the Cork Puller
Kerning (n.): The adjustment of space between the letters of words to improve the appearance of text matter
Wrestling definition:
It looks like a submission applied after executing a double wristlock that could pull your arms from their sockets. Thus, it’s named: the Wingspan
Baseline (n.): The imaginary horizontal line upon which most of the characters in a typeface sit.
Wrestling definition:
A double wristlock and a leg vice? Actually, the Baseline is a pretty good name for that!
Ligature (n.): A character or glyph combining elements of two or more other glyphs and used as a substitute for those other glyphs in typesetting.
Wrestling definition:
It’s kind of looks like a Gory Stretch turned into a backslide, so … let’s call it the Gory Slide.
Hard Break (n.): a page break that you explicitly insert. The application cannot override a hard break. Also known as a Forced Page Break or a Hard Page Break.
Wrestling definition:
The Bane.
See? Wrestling can teach you anything and you can find it just about anywhere, when in the restroom of a restaurant. What names can you think of?
Three Man Booth 
