A capital letter is a letter of formal shape. Capitalswere originally derived from the stiff and angular lettersused in formal inscriptions. Originally all writing wasdone in capitals. Later the scribes devised less formal shapesfor the letters, making use of lines more easily made by brushor pen on papyrus, parchment, or paper. The capitals wereretained for certain uses but the less formal shapes wereemployed to do the greater part of the work. These lessformal letters have been known by several names. Theywill be referred to here by that under which they are knownto modern printers, “lower-case.”
A further modification of the letter came with the introductionof the sloping, or italic letter. This received itsname from its place of origin, Italy. It was introduced byNicholas Jenson, a printer of Venice, and was an imitationof the handwriting of the Italian poet Petrarch. Originallyit was used only for the lower-case and was combined withthe older form of capital letters, called roman, also fromthe place of its origin. Later the italic characteristicswere given to capitals as well as lower-case letters.
An ordinary font of book type contains five series of letters:full capitals, small capitals, italic capitals (full size),roman lower-case, and italic lower-case. The full capital,roman or italic, is larger than the other letters of the font,every letter being as high as the lower-case ascenders. Thesmall capital is only as high as the lower-case round letters.Larger capitals still are sometimes used as chapter initialsand the like.
It will be observed that the distinction between capitaland lower-case letters is one of form, not of size. The fullcapitals being much more used than the small capitals andbeing larger than the other letters in the font, the impression[2]is common that the size is the distinguishing mark.This erroneous impression has even crept into dictionarydefinitions.
The full capital, which will hereafter be called in this booksimply the capital, is used in combination with lower-caseletters or with small capitals in the same word. The smallcapital is not used in combination with lower-case in thesame word. We may print GEORGE WASHINGTON,George BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
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