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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