A glossary is a list of surrenders, alphabetised

Two columns, eleven rows each. Every entry is a mark, not a word — except one, -san, sitting at the top where the eye lands first, and one flat sentence at the foot: WE LEFT THESE AS THEY ARE.

You don't need to read the rows to understand the page.

What is a glossary at the front actually for?

A list of the words somebody decided not to translate, with just enough explanation that you can keep reading without stopping again.

Every term in it failed the same test: put into the target language, it either meant something narrower than the original or dragged in a meaning that wasn't there. Rather than force a translation that misleads, the term stays as it is, and the glossary is where that decision gets paid for up front instead of a hundred separate times in the margins. A single one of these decisions can carry a whole page on its own when it's tied to one joke rather than to a whole list of terms.

Why does it sit at the front instead of the back?

Because it's a contract, not an appendix.

A glossary at the back is reference material — you go looking for it when you're already confused. One at the front is read before the story starts, which changes what it is: the reader agrees to the terms before agreeing to the terms. It's the same reason a rulebook's key comes before the rules rather than after. You can't apply what you haven't seen yet.

Why does the design leave every entry illegible?

Because the shape of the list is the argument, not any single row in it.

Eleven terms in one column, eleven definitions in the other, laid out with the same discipline as a dictionary — that structure is legible at a glance even with nothing readable in it. It says this many words needed protecting before you've read a single one. Print all eleven terms legibly and the design becomes about which words specifically; leave them as marks and it becomes about the fact of the list, which is the more durable thing to put on a chest.

Why is -san the one word left standing?

Because it's the simplest possible case, and simple cases teach the rule fastest.

A single hyphenated suffix, three letters, no plot attached to it — nobody has to know the story to see what's being kept intact. It functions like a worked example at the top of a page of exercises: read this one, and you understand what the other ten rows are doing even without being able to read them. The same suffix carries a whole article on its own, because a term this small can hold a surprising amount of relationship inside it.

Is the closing line an apology?

No — read it again. WE LEFT THESE AS THEY ARE has no qualifier in it, no "sorry", no "we couldn't find a better word". It's a flat statement of what was done, set at the foot the way a policy gets posted rather than argued for. A different translator, less confident, would have buried the same decision in a footnote with three sentences of justification. This one just says it happened. A page that names the people who did unpaid work sets a policy the same way — one sentence, no argument attached to it.

Can I use real terms from a real glossary?

If specific terms from a specific published translation are the point, that text belongs to whoever wrote it, and licensing that kind of material is routine.

The glossary as a form — two columns, a term and a gloss, a closing statement of policy — belongs to nobody. It's older than any single work; dictionaries, field guides and rulebooks all use the same shape. An invented glossary arguably suits the subject better anyway, since it can be about the practice of keeping words untranslated rather than about one translator's specific calls.

Does it print well?

Yes. Two columns of hairline-separated rows print cleanly at almost any scale, and because most of the page is intentionally illegible marks rather than set type, there's no fine text to worry about going soft on fabric. The one legible term and the one legible closing line are the only places that need real type discipline — keep both a clear size larger than the marks around them, or the page stops reading as "here is what's clear and here is what isn't." A plain pale garment with dark ink, close to a printed page, suits the register; it holds on a dark garment too if the rule lines stay high-contrast.

How do I get one made?

Describe the terms you'd keep and the sentence you'd close with at JustOG. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Eleven rows nobody can read, and one sentence that doesn't need translating.