Great reporting from Jason Fagone in New York Magazine on the dissolution of type juggernauts Jonnathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. Halfway through the piece, though, type designer Erik Spiekermann, who is quoted earlier calling Frere-Jones “one of the two or three best type designers in the world,” steals the show with this tid-bit:

According to Spiekermann, who knows both Hoefler and Frere-Jones, Frere-Jones is “a cool kid” who “wants to make cool stuff,” whereas Hoefler is “the little nitty-gritty mean little bastard. He is a tight-ass, as we say in German.”

I tried doing a search for how to say “tight-ass” in German. Um…don’t do that.