As far as I understand it, the tittle is not strictly a diacritical mark in that it doesn't
modify the sound of the letter beneath. It was first used in Latin manuscripts in the
??eleventh?? century to distinguish the letter 'j' from strokes of surrounding letters and has
subsequently appeared on the derivative 'i' in English.
But, of course, Ask the Profs,
Roger
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2005 2:49 AM
Subject: Re: For Robin Hamilton (1)
> And when the profs chime in, maybe they can tell us when the tittle began to cap the i and
> whose doing it was. It's our only diacritical.
>
> At 07:02 PM 12/30/2005, you wrote:
>>Has this anything to do with "tittle-tattle"?
>>
>>Roger
>>
>>I suspect it does, Roger, in that it would work like this: a 'tittle' is a
>>small thing, whereas 'tattle' as in 'tatler' denotes talk, gossip, etc, so
>>'tittle-tattle' is a lot of yak about not very much. And of course the words
>>link in sound.
>>
>>this is all guesswork on my part, as I feel far too lazy to research it, so
>>waiting for the Profs.
>>
>>Best
>>
>>Dave
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 3:09 PM
>>Subject: Re: For Robin Hamilton (1)
>>
>>
>>Has this anything to do with "tittle-tattle"?
>>
>>Roger
>>On 12/30/05, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > Thanks Dave 'tittle'confirmed in my OED also tittling which has a
>>charm
>> > P tittling P
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
>> > poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
>> > Sent: 30 December 2005 14:13
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Subject: For Robin Hamilton (1)
>> >
>> > Some disjecta membra that might interest Monsieur Le Rodent:
>> >
>> > 1) Daylight robbery. I came across this the other day: one assumes that
>>the
>> > phrase means something blatantly obvious and wrong being done in the sight
>> > others, which is its usage, but its origin is quite different. It comes
>>from
>> > the Window Tax in 17th century England, when, of course, people bricked up
>> > their windows to avoid the financial toll. Hence, it was not 'DAYlight
>> > robbery', as we say it, but rather: 'daylight: robbery'.
>> >
>> > 2) 'ghetto' comes from the Italian for 'foundry'. This was because there
>>was
>> > an island foundry in Venice which, in the early 16th century, became the
>> > first formalised 'ghetto' for Jews. That was the beginning of the utter
>> > horrors (btw I can't, in this respect, recommend enough the late W.G.
>> > Sebald's great novel 'Austerlitz')
>> >
>> > 3) The word for the little dot over a lower-case i is apparently a
>>'tittle'.
>> > I haven't investigated the accuracy of this but I hope it's true.
>> >
>> > Best
>> >
>> > Dave
>> >
>>
>>
>>--
>>http://www.badstep.net/
>>http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/
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