Confused about some old time carving or engraving

[Jack]

Can someone explain why the letter U in some old carvings as"V" and O as "o"?

Example would be something like "VNIVERSITY" and "AMAZoN".

[fredfighter]

Straight lines are easier to carve than curves.

I'm not sure about the small "o". Perhaps there was a small "o" tool that made the entire letter, a smaller one would not have to be hit as hard to make the letter.

[Jack]

S, R,P,C, etc. has curves. Must be something else, perhaps some sort of convention at the time.

Some Os are in upper case and others in lower case. Couldn't figure what the rules were in using upper or lower cases for those Os. Take a look at some old carvings in some old instatutional buildings then you know what I mean.

[hylourgos]

It could be following ancient Latin convention, in whose alphabet "U" is a medieval invention. Ancient Latin inscriptions have V instead, and most traditional (epigraphic) inscriptions follow suit.

The smaller case "o" is something else. You might find a reduction in the size of a particular letter in an ancient inscription, but seldom for just the "o". I have seen examples of such in manuscripts, and the reasons are (usually) to correct a mistake, but sometimes to affect a peculiar (typeface, not literary) style, and sometimes to conserve space.

H.

[George]

Latin. Custom had V as U sound in classic time.

Greek-based stuff, like iconography, you see a lot of the tilde ~ to indicate letters omitted. Just the way they did things.

[Dave W]

[John McCoy]

"Dave W" wrote in news:MIednc-EpqSMscDZnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

Correct - and it's particularly common when some place wants to look "learned" that they use the Latin form, hence "VNIVERSITY".

It also is the reason why "double u" is shaped VV.

(the Romans also had no "J", using "I" instead).

John