I know a bunch of typography and font stuff. Here’s the page of me working out how that knowledge is applied on the web.
I haven't gotten there linearly yet, but web typography gives clear instructions on how to use web fonts and a bit of the history of their development. The history of web fonts wasn't something I'd learned before, so that was really cool (if not necessarily vital) new information. It also covers font faces and other relevant shit. Go check it out.
I will try not to veer into a history of the written word, but it's important to bear in mind that a lot of all this was worked out to make printing presses work with the latin alphabet, and that's where some of the vocabulary comes from. When we use printing presses, each letter needs to be physically made. Each tray of letters was called a People design these different sets of letters very intentionally so they remain readable when italic, bold, or small. Computers can do automatic things to stretch or thicken lines to mimic what it should look like, but these false substitues are less readable than properly designed letters.
This is a measurement of the size of the letters in a typeface. It's a relative measure, not absolute like px, and will change depending on what font is being used.
Serifs are the little pointy bits that come from writing letters with a quill. Sans serif means without serifs. It's easier to read lots of text with a serif font, because all the letters look more different. Keep sans serif fonts for use in headers or for stylistic reasons.
Instructions once I figure them out.