An interesting article crossed my desk yesterday, detailing a dozen “letters” that just didn’t make the cut for our modern Roman alphabet. Well, okay, it’s not that cut and dried. It’s not like there was a Council of Nicaea meeting on the alphabet. Most of these “lost letters” were in wide use at one time, but just fell out of favor.
You know some of them already. The friendly Ampersand (&) is the best known, and anyone who’s read a facsimile of our Declaration of Independence has snickered over the phrase “Purfuit of Happinefs,” wherein we find both the old “long s” and its surviving relation, the “short s.” (And now you know what to call that “effy” S-thing.) (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 