[Dixonary] (Off Topic) Ligatures

[Daniel B. Widdis]

Given the recent discussion about the ligature oe, and the way it is
displayed differently, I thought I'd share that I found the Wikipedia
entry on ligature rather fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(typography)

For example, I never knew that the ampersand, &, originated as a Latin
ligature for et.
Quoth Caesar, "& tu, Brute?"

--
Dan Widdis

[Judy G. Russell]

FYI, the hotlink to that article is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_%28typography%29.

[Lindsey]

Given the recent discussion about the ligature oe, and the way it is
displayed differently, I thought I'd share that I found the Wikipedia
entry on ligature rather fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(typography)

For example, I never knew that the ampersand, &, originated as a Latin
ligature for et.
Quoth Caesar, "& tu, Brute?"

--
Dan Widdis
Oddly enough, ligatures are a topic I've had reason to delve into this summer.

Adobe has a fascinating page about the development of the ampersand at http://store.adobe.com/type/topics/theampersand.html

FWIW, the official name of the "oe" ligature is the "ethyl"; the name of the "ae" ligature is "ash". I've been doing a lot of work lately with transcriptions of handwritten late-18th and early-19th century documents, and was truly astonished to come across the use of a handwritten "ethyl" ligature in the names "Phoebe" and "Foelix" in the 1790 census. (In handwriting, it's like an "o" with the connector coming down through the middle of the letter rather than off of the top.) There was also a handwritten "ash" ligature in the name "Aesop".

Handwritten ampersands from that time period tend to resemble the Carolingian minuscule illustrated in Figure 4 on that Adobe page.

The German "esszet" (that character that looks like the Greek "beta" and is used for "ss") is also a ligature. It evolved out of the crossless "f" character that was used in printing for a long s, followed by the regular "round s".

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

The German "esszet" (that character that looks like the Greek "beta" and is used for "ss") is also a ligature. It evolved out of the crossless "f" character that was used in printing for a long s, followed by the regular "round s".I wonder if my Geißler ancestors knew that…