Production of Texts
Printing:
Printing was brought to England in 1476 by a man named William Caxton. It was slow and inconsistent.
Lower and upper case letter, fonts, page layout and punctuation all varied throughout a piece. It was common that the same word would be spelt differently in the same text.
It was a long time before the uses of these features became standardised. Nowadays, it is far more consistent.
*Ligatures:
*Combinations of letters printed in a joined form
Printed English from the 18th century contained lots of ligatures. They are considered graphological features.
Common combinations: c&t and s&l
Ligatures flourished in the 15th century as they were a great time saver. However, as a result of modern-era printing, ligatures began to die out.
Did you know?
'&' was originally a combination of the letters 'e' and 't' which spelled 'et'; the Latin word for 'and'.
Handwriting:
Handwriting styles have changed from as recently as the early 20th century. Studying texts from 1800s, we can see that such differences are even more marked.
Find out more information about handwriting styles here!
Printing was brought to England in 1476 by a man named William Caxton. It was slow and inconsistent.
Lower and upper case letter, fonts, page layout and punctuation all varied throughout a piece. It was common that the same word would be spelt differently in the same text.
It was a long time before the uses of these features became standardised. Nowadays, it is far more consistent.
*Ligatures:
*Combinations of letters printed in a joined form
Printed English from the 18th century contained lots of ligatures. They are considered graphological features.
Common combinations: c&t and s&l
Ligatures flourished in the 15th century as they were a great time saver. However, as a result of modern-era printing, ligatures began to die out.
Did you know?
'&' was originally a combination of the letters 'e' and 't' which spelled 'et'; the Latin word for 'and'.
Handwriting:
Handwriting styles have changed from as recently as the early 20th century. Studying texts from 1800s, we can see that such differences are even more marked.
Find out more information about handwriting styles here!