Subject: Re: 'I' am a PiG
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 19:54:42 -0500 (EDT)


--Hushpart_boundary_TEicoKbGJbLzuvhXPVRfgOgOgijnIhOF

 This works well for words that 'begin' with 'i'.  The use of the capital 
here makes lexical sense so as to distinguish it from being abstracted into 
an 'm' or another character.  However, your wonderful explaination (and 
I don't mean to sound flippant) does not explain why  the 'i' (personal 
pronoun) would best be capitalized all the time.

The reason being that 'I' or 'i' - on its own - does not have a second character 
next to it that may make it difficult to differentiate it from.

However,  your explaination is cogent in that you suggest that it was a 
'habitual' change that occured due to the changes made to words that began 
with 'I' - afterall, 'I' is, lexically speaking 'a word' on to itself and 
'i' would be the first letter of that one-letter 'word'.

But this begs the question, why not capitalize all 'i's so as not to confuse 
them with the pre/proceeding character - for instance, why not :  sIn, sInister,
 sImple, solItude or even soLItude etc.

Perhaps 'I' am just picking bones here(?)  

"oInk"


At Tue, 24 Oct 2000 07:39:29 +0200, Fludernik <fluderni-AT-uni-freiburg.de> 
wrote:

>
>It looks arrogant etc., but actually in the history of the English language
>I came to be capitalized in order to be distinguishable from surrounding
>continuity of manuscript graphemes which mostly consisted in strokes,
> thus
>making it extremely difficult to distinguish m, n, u, i etc. In order 
>to
>clarify that certain words did not start in m but in (both of which 
>looked
>quite the same in the ductus of manuscripts) writers started to capitalize
>I, not only for the personal pronoun but also for all words starting 
>with I,
>which is why even in Malory in the late 15thc and sometimes beyond that 
>to
>the 18th century we have old spellings of "immediately" as Incontinent 
>he
>spoke and saide to his master....
>
>
>
>-----------------------------
>Prof. Dr. Monika Fludernik
>Albert-Ludwigs Universitt Freiburg
>Englisches Seminar
>D-79085 Freiburg im Breisgau/Germany
>
>FAX  ++49  761  203  3359
>
>
>
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>
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