Lowercase letter

“ Notes are principally confined to the briefest of communications, as the frequent and necessary repetition of the pronouns—she and her, for instance—or the surnames of the writer and recipient of the note becomes tedious; and when it is imperative to write in the third person, it is most desirable to construct each sentence with a due regard to an extravagant use of pronouns, and never at any time to resort to the vulgar expedient of attempting a sort of compromise by making the initial letter of the writer and of the person written to do duty for their respective names and surnames. ”

“ Like the original, this specimen was printed and then zinc-etched
Use of the pen and brush in lettering and the tendency to letter rapidly finally gave us the lower-case type of today. The evolution is pictured in Example 465. “A” shows the Roman capital alphabet as made with the pen (compare with the chiseled letters of Example 464-A) . In “B” we have the result (known as uncials) of hurried writing of the Roman capitals, and one can see how the lower-case letters were forming. ”

“ As many letters of the alphabet have sounds more or less similar, such as "S" and "F," "M" and "N" and "D" and "T," many mistakes have occurred. Therefore, the ingenuity of the signaler was called upon to invent names for certain of the letters most commonly confused. Below is a list of the ones which are now officially recognized:
The last is, of course, the usual pronunciation of this letter in England and Canada, but, as it may be unfamiliar to some readers, I have included it. ”

“ As above said, legibility depends also much on the design of the letter: and again I take up the cudgels against compressed type, and that especially in roman letter: the full-sized lower-case letters “a,” “b,” “d,” and “c,” should be designed on something like a square to get good results: otherwise one may fairly say that there is no room for the design; furthermore, each letter should have its due characteristic drawing, the thickening out for a “b,” “e,” “g,” should not be of the same kind as that for a “d”; a “u” should not merely be an “n” turned upside down ”

“ It is generally conceded by authorities that lower-case types in the same size of letter are more legible than capitals (E) and should be used for headings and for display lines in advertising matter, where easy reading is essential.
Assuming that the largest possible face on the smallest possible type body results in legibility and allows more matter on a page, both users and makers of type have in many fonts caused the descending and ascending strokes to be shortened. The lower-case letters g, j, p, q and y have been the principal sufferers, as they are the only ones with descending strokes. ”

“ The extensions above the shorter letters are quite insignificant, and are only used to save the letter from resembling some other letter of the alphabet. They never conflict, and how legible they are. ”

“ It is quite a common occurrence for letters—especially letters of a small size—which are dropped into a letter-box, to slip inside newspapers or book-packets, and to be carried, not only out of their proper course, but to places abroad, thus getting into the hands of the wrong persons. ”

“ Is it not a disgrace to a man of letters, to be unable to tell accurately what a letter is? Yet to say, with Lowth, Murray, Churchill, and a hundred others of inferior name, that, "A letter is the first principle or least part of a word," is to utter what is neither good English nor true doctrine. ”

“ What word is there of five letters, that, by taking two away, leaves but one? Stone.
What word of one syllable, if you take two letters from it, remains a word of two syllables? Plague; ague.
Why is the letter E a gloomy and discontented vowel? Because, though never out of health and pocket, it never appears in spirits.
Why are the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet of more importance than the others? Because we cannot get ON well without them. ”

“ Where the punctuation of a manuscript is consistent, and when the sense of the text is not affected, the punctuation should not be changed.
Unless directions to the contrary are given, all punctuation marks should be printed in the same style or font of type as the word or letter immediately preceding them. In italics, where an abbreviation is used, with a semicolon, colon, exclamation, or interrogation point immediately following, do not use an italic mark; as, Ibid.; et seg. ”

“ She wants to see her son's hand-writing, for to her loving eyes, his angular, awkward, and even misspelt, letters are a thousand times more beautiful and symmetrical than any letter any typewriter ever produced. What ardent lover would care to receive a type-written letter? Do not lovers fondly linger, and dote, and dream over the very characters wrought by the hand they love so well? A letter from a lover's hand is a revelation that no machine-written letter can ever be. ”

“ With us it has become both the belief and the practice that if a letter has once got into the spelling of a word, no matter how unlawfully, it has acquired the right of remaining there forever. In consequence, our language is encumbered with a lot of alphabetic squatters which have settled down upon the orthography without any regard to the opposing claims of either derivation or pronunciation. The mental attitude which at first tolerated and at last has learned to love these nuisances sprang up after the invention of printing. ”

“ In this Index segment of the Paston Letters, unambiguous errors in punctuation and typography have been silently corrected or regularized. Other errors are marked with mouse-hover popups, and are listed again at the end of their entry. The word “invisible” means that there is an appropriately sized blank space, but the letter or punctuation mark itself is missing. ”

“ DIRECTIONS TO PUPILS
Why These Words Should be Studied.—One of the ways by which people judge the writer of a letter is by the presence or absence of spelling errors. Often a young man or young woman has failed to obtain a desirable position because of spelling errors in a letter of application. Even in the ordinary friendly letter, spelling errors make a bad impression. The words which you are to learn from this spelling book are the words which people most frequently use in writing letters. Thousands of letters were read, and each word found was recorded. ”

“ After the writing is completed, attention should be paid to the initial and the decoration. A good method for the beginner is to fix a sheet of tracing-paper over the page; as the lettering shows plainly through, there is plenty of opportunity for experimenting with decoration.
Some good types of letters suitable for initials are shown in Fig. 26. The first alphabet is based largely on a type of letter used in the eleventh century, while the110 second one is a free rendering of thirteenth-century letters. These letters are all built up. They may be made with either pen or brush. ”

“ This would be more in line with what I did with the second tier IDs. IDs may be uppercase/mixedcase, and case is significant, but my practice for IDs used as anchors (and not for CSS selectors) is to always use lowercase because they appear in the url—and I typically use all lowercase there. ”

“ MY DEAR MRS. WORDSWORTH, I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it, but she having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now trying to do it in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of gourds, cassia, cardemoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, than into kindly responses and friendly recollections. The reason why I cannot write letters at home, is, that I am never alone. ”

“ A man should be given his title if he possess one. Otherwise he must be addressed as "Mr." or "Esq."
Titles of those holding public office, of physicians, of the clergy, and of professors, are generally abbreviated on the envelope except in formal letters.
It is rather customary to address social letters to "Edward Beech, Esq.," business letters to "Mr. [34] Edward Beech," and a tradesman's letter to "Peter Moore." A servant is addressed as "William White." ”

“ One single letter gave it to me.”
“How was that?”
“If you will look at the telegram,” said Ben, spreading it out before me, “you will notice that in one instance only is a single letter seen standing by itself. That is the letter ‘b,’ which I concluded must stand for the article ‘a,’ for I know of no other, unless it is ‘I.’ Now, the letter ‘b’ is the second one in the alphabet, and stands next in order to ‘a.’ If this system is followed throughout the cipher, we have only to take, instead of the letters as written, the next in order as they occur in the alphabet. ”

“ I mean the early habit of writing letters neatly and correctly. There are a hundred cases where a young person’s success in life may be affected by the appearance of their epistles. A letter badly written, badly spelt, or badly punctuated, is a direct and abiding proof of a neglected education, or a disorderly mind. ”

“ There is another word, a synonym, which is now obsolescent, though it is at times used in poetry. But while either word will win the ten thousand dollars in cash now in the custody of the Mayor of New York, the word I particularly have in mind has five letters, of which the first is appropriately A, the Alpha of the Greeks, the Aleph of the Hebrews, and now the first of all the alphabets of European languages. It is logically the [Pg 246] first letter because it is the first sound that man naturally makes—'A' or 'Ah!' The first letter! ”

“ Note.—In letter-writing of all kinds, the style should be simple, and the manner of expression natural. Neatness and correctness are essential.
THE PARTS OF A LETTER.
The parts of a letter are the heading, the address, the salutation, the body, the conclusion, and the signature.
The heading should show where and when the letter was written. It should include the address of the writer in full, and the date.
Every important part of the heading should begin with a capital letter. Every abbreviated word should be followed by a period, and the parts of the heading should be separated by commas. ”

“ In formal friendly letters and in letters of a non-commercial nature, the inside address should stand a little below the bottom of the letter at the left side of the page. In informal friendly letters the inside address may be omitted.
157. Punctuation of Inside Address. In punctuating the inside address, place a period after each abbreviation that is used. In addition to this, place a comma after the name of the addressee, a comma after the street address, if one be given, and after the name of the town or city. Place a period after the name of the state or country. ”

“ Lady correspondents are too apt to over-emphasize in their letter-writing, and in general evince a sad disregard of the laws of punctuation. We would respectfully suggest that a comma is not designed to answer every purpose, and that the underlining of every second or third word adds nothing to the eloquence or clearness of a letter, however certain it may be to provoke an unflattering smile upon the lips of the reader. ”

“ Kerned Letters are types that have part of the face hanging over either one or both sides of the body. In Roman, f and j are the only kerned letters; but, in Italic, d, g, j, l, y are kerned on one side, and f on both sides of its face. Most Italic capitals are kerned on one side of the face.
The Double Letters in modern use are ff, fi, ffi, fl, ffl; and these are so cast to prevent the breaking of the beak of the f when used before a tall letter. The diphthongs æ and œ may be classed among double letters.
Printers divide a fount of letter into two classes. ”

“ I. Wrong Letters and Punctuation Marks.—The most common mistakes in a proof-sheet are wrong letters and punctuation marks. When these are noticed, a line should be drawn slopingly, from right to left, through each, and the correct letter or punctuation mark written in the margin. It is better to repeat the line with the correction in the margin, so as to attract attention to the desired change; as, 2, 4, 8. A sloping line should always be placed between corrections opposite the same line, and the corrections should be placed in the order in which they occur.
REMARKS.
1. ”

“ In honour and favour u is silent, and therefore a useless letter, so far as sound is concerned. The u signifies that the word came to us through the French, instead of directly from the Latin. The question is, whether we shall go to the trouble of writing the extra letter in a large class of such words for the sake of the historical association. Perhaps one in a thousand would choose to do so, but others of us are more intent on saving time and ink. ”

“ Lest you should tear the letter in breaking it open, it is best to cut round the seal. We have seen letters that were actually illegible from the paleness of the ink. If you write from your own house this is inexcusable, as you ought always to be well supplied with that indispensable article; and in a city you can easily send to a stationer’s and buy it. It is still better to make it yourself; than which nothing is more easy. ”

“ Take care in folding a letter to make all the creases exactly straight and even. If one is looser than another, or if there is the slightest widening out or narrowing in towards the edge of the turn-over, the letter will have a crooked, unsightly appearance. ”