Upper and Lower Case

Upper and lower cases

I love this very literal word origin story. The terms uppercase and lowercase that we associate with the letters of the alphabet evolved directly from the physical storage system used by typesetters in the era of the movable-type printing press.

We go back to the days of Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The movable type system in early printing meant that every single letter, numeral, and punctuation mark was cast as an individual block of metal, called a sort.

To compose a page of text, a typesetter (or compositor) had to pick out each sort one by one and arrange them backward in a frame.

To keep the hundreds of different sorts organized and easily accessible, printers stored them in compartmentalized wooden trays called type cases. Traditionally, the typesetter would use a pair of cases, which were set up on a working stand, often angled and stacked. The upper case, which was set above and behind the lower one, held the capital letters. Capital letters (which were also known as majuscule letters) are used far less frequently in English text, so they could be stored slightly further away.

The lower case, positioned below and closer to the typesetter, held the small letters (also known as minuscule letters) that make up the vast majority of any given text.

The arrangement of the letter compartments within the lower case was based on letter frequency. The largest compartments, and those closest to the typesetter, were for the most common letters, like 'e', 't', 'a', and 'o', saving the typesetter time and effort.

The terms became standardized and filtered out from the printing trade into general language around the 18th century, thankfully replacing the older, more technical terms of majuscule and minuscule.

Noon and Midnight

“Noon” and “midnight” are just two of our designations of times of the day. Both mark the point when an analog clock starts another 12-hour cycle. But the word “noon” took a little bit of a journey around the clock before arriving at its current location.

The root of the word “noon” is the Latin nonus, meaning “ninth,” which became nōn in Old English and Middle English. The word marked the ninth hour after sunrise. This made “noon” a bit of a moving target, but a 6 a.m. sunrise, for instance, would put noon around 3 p.m.

It may have been fasting monks that caused noon to shift earlier in the day. The ninth hour is significant in Christian liturgy as time set aside for prayer, known as nones, and it was particularly important in early monastic traditions. Because monks were often required to fast until then, one prevailing theory as to why the ninth-hour prayer started drifting earlier is that people were getting hungry. The Roman Catholic canonical hour of nones remained at 3 p.m., but by the 14th century, “noon” referred to a new time of day, when the sun was highest in the sky.

Knock on wood

The phrase "knock on wood" is a ubiquitous expression used to ward off bad luck. While the phrase “knock on wood”—or “touch wood” in Britain—has been part of the vernacular since at the least the 19th century, there seems to be little agreement on how it originated.

One origin theory is that knocking on wood has its roots in ancient pagan beliefs, particularly among Celtic cultures. According to this theory, trees were considered sacred, housing spirits or minor gods. Knocking on a tree trunk was believed to rouse these spirits, seeking protection or thanking them for good fortune. This idea is supported by the fact that ancient cultures did revere trees, often associating them with powerful spirits and divine connections.

However, there's a catch: there's no direct evidence linking ancient tree worship to the modern practice of knocking on wood. The gap between the Christianization of Europe and the first written records of this superstition spans over a thousand years, making it challenging to confirm this theory.

Other possible origins include:

A medieval European belief that evil spirits or demons lurked in wood - even wood used to build a house or table - and knocking on wood would chase them away

A superstition that wood has protective powers, possibly due to its association with the cross

A simple gesture of humility, acknowledging that one's fate is not entirely in one's control

Why Do People Knock on Wood for Luck? | HISTORY.com