’ and ‘est’ appears as ‘÷,’ especially in courthand law deeds.
A line drawn through the head of the letter ‘
’ means also the addition of other letters, as is, e, etc. This contraction in names is apt to be confused with double ‘tt.’
It is said that our alphabet did not formerly contain as many letters as at present. The letters ‘i’ and ‘j’ were identical until a recent period. ‘W’ is said to have been derived from two ‘u’s,’ and is always so written in old deeds, joined together, while ‘u’ and ‘v’ were used indiscriminately. In old manuscripts the shortstroke letters were formed alike; thus ‘n,’ ‘u,’ ‘w,’ ‘i,’ are merely strokes or minims, difficult to distinguish, more particularly where any of these letters occur side by side in the formation of words; to count the strokes is the only guide. Practice and a knowledge of likely words to be employed solve the knotty point.
The chief difficulty of all lies in the correct rendering of names, for these have perpetually changed in their spelling. In a single deed several different forms may be observed, the result of clerical copying. Even with names the system of abbreviation was carried on, especially among court rolls; this will be noticed in such surnames as ‘Couper’ written ‘Coup,’ ‘Shepherd’ as ‘Shep.’
In certain styles of mediæval writing the terminals of words are carried upwards with a long sweep, and are confusing in their resemblance to abbreviation marks. Here, again, practice alone accustoms the eye to decide whether a word is complete or not.
Dots and other kinds of stops in writing have only come gradually into use in their present significance, and the use of these is now less observed than early in the last century.
In the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, as in Roman inscriptions, the dot is freely used to denote contractions as well as to divide the words from each other. In Domesday this is also noticed; but with later manuscripts the dot, or point, such as is used in Norman times, fell into disuse in favour of lines or curves for the abbreviated syllables. Upon the introduction of printing our various kinds of stops are first observed. It is said that the Elzevirs invented some of them. The reversed semicolon is commonly observed in some manuscripts.