Timeline for How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 18, 2014 at 8:06 | history | edited | 200_success | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added image text
|
| Oct 13, 2014 at 2:08 | history | edited | hippietrail | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
⁊
|
| Oct 12, 2014 at 9:47 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 31 characters in body
|
| Oct 11, 2014 at 19:38 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | Historically, a dot set somewhere north of the baseline occurs in various sorts of handwriting and typesetting, including even when used as a decimal point with text figures, the “lowercase or old-style digits” which although present in most fonts are the default in very few of them, with the Georgia font used for ELU’s main text being a notable exception and part of why it was chosen for this site. Handset type using text figures for numbers at display (headline) sizes will sometimes elevate that dot a little, just as in your final example. | |
| Oct 11, 2014 at 19:31 | comment | added | anongoodnurse | @tchrist - you're correct. I looked at several manuscripts from England, Italy and other countries, and the use of the end point is more common than I've represented. Edited my answer. Thanks! | |
| Oct 11, 2014 at 19:27 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
corrected end points
|
| Oct 11, 2014 at 14:16 | history | edited | terdon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Fixed typo (repeated full stop). Great answer by the way!
|
| Oct 11, 2014 at 13:08 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | Nicely done. By the way, the MIDDLE DOT U+00B7 has been used as a text separator (more so than as a terminator) for thousands of years, as readily seen in the famous writing found on Trajan’s Column and in many other ancient works. Whether the insular scribes writing in uncial and half-uncial hands consciously mimicked the Roman use or whether it developed on its own as a spontaneous and natural element could be debated, but no scribe familiar with Tiro’s ⁊ would be unfamiliar with using a · for a separator. | |
| Oct 11, 2014 at 6:14 | comment | added | jon | Thanks for the ref. I'll erase all previous comments. But I still encourage others to keep an open mind about the "disappeance" of the Tironian 'et' in the middle ages: there are many examples (e.g., here -- look for the '7's with a little curl to the right at the bottom; or here -- the "crossed" 7s in the left margin). The sign mostly died out eventually, but it had nothing to do with the middle ages. | |
| Oct 11, 2014 at 5:18 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
ammended
|
| Oct 10, 2014 at 20:48 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Oct 10, 2014 at 11:06 | comment | added | Boldewyn | A small addition: The Tironian “et” is also available as Unicode character and can as such be used in modern electronic texts: codepoints.net/U+204A | |
| Oct 10, 2014 at 7:56 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
corrected a mistake
|
| Oct 9, 2014 at 21:17 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 196 characters in body
|
| Oct 9, 2014 at 21:08 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 84 characters in body
|
| Oct 9, 2014 at 20:18 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 10 characters in body
|
| Oct 9, 2014 at 19:41 | history | answered | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |