On Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 12:56:17 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> On Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 9:23:09 AM UTC+5:30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 11:04:03 PM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:
> >
> > You seem to be quoting something.
>
> Various bits and pieces from memory.
> >
> > > Olde and Shoppe are correct archaic spellings. That leaves Ye.
> > >
> > > In handwriting, it was Þe. Typesetters, in order to avoid the bother of adding the thorn (Þ) to their fonts, reused Y because in the Holland Gothic typeface, Y was closed and looked like a thorn; look for Jelly in Holland Gothic on this page:
https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/holland-gothic/
> > >
> > > In other typefaces, with a y open at the top, y was laterally inverted, so a printed thorn looked like a y seen through a mirror. Whether inverted or not, the reader was expected to interpret y as a thorn (th or dh) in appropriate contexts.
> >
> > It's not possible to "laterally invert" a piece of type. You can rotate it 180
> > degrees (period).
> >
> Well, I distinctly reading about a thorn grapheme that was a laterally inverted y;
Aside from the fact that "grapheme" is a senseless term, that's not talking
about a piece of type, is it?
> I didn't try to verify whether it was right or wrong. Perhaps it's possible to laterally invert the form for a Y mold to make a thorn mold from which to make a thorn type. Personally, I don't see much merit in such an odd looking thorn but that's the kind of thorn I read about.
No, no one would do that, because the shadings (relative thicks and thins)
would be all wrong for it to fit into the line of print.
> > > A capital Y is symmetrical in a modern typeface, so its lateral inversion can't be distinguished from it.
BTW this isn't correct either, except in a badly drawn sans serif
monoline font. ("Reflection" not "inversion" is what you want.) Normally
the left diagonal of Y is heavier than the right diagonal.