Re: dumb terminology trivia question

Subject: Re: dumb terminology trivia question
From: Peter Neilson <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 18:27:34 -0500


On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:01:32 +1100, Rob Partridge <rob -at- holly -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:

Someone asked me yesterday what the opposite to "capital letters" was - what
do you call ummm lower case letters. I said "lower case", then explained why
"upper" and "lower case" came to be used. Then they asked what they were
called before the days of hot metal printing presses invented the term lower
case. I guessed just "letters" or "small letters" but wondered if there was
another term. Any clues?

Rob, I suspect that the upper and lower cases for handset type predate
cast type. The earliest movable type, Gutenberg's, was carved from
wood, and I saw a printshop, years ago when Linotypes and handset were
still common, that had an ample amount of wooden type for posters and
headlines. I think it was all upper-case type, but they kept it in a
bin near the floor! Gosh knows how old it was, probably a hundred
years or so.

The article that Diane Evans pointed out has the correct answer, though,
majuscules and minuscules. (Editorial nit-picking point: minuscule is
the correct spelling. The common "miniscule" is an error. Which does
*your* spell checker prefer?)



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References:
dumb terminology trivia question: From: Rob Partridge

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