{"id":2455,"date":"2019-11-22T14:46:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T14:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2024-04-20T22:18:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T22:18:34","slug":"fun-facts-32-tittle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/11\/22\/fun-facts-32-tittle\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Facts About English #32 – Jot and Tittle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Fun<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A tittle<\/em>, or superscript dot, is a small diacritic<\/a> in the form of a distinguishing glyph or jot on a lowercase i<\/em> and j<\/em>. Other such diacritics below will be familiar to readers of Spanish:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"diacritics<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dictionary.com<\/a> offers the following definition for tittle<\/em>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derived from the Latin word titulus<\/em>, meaning \u201cinscription, heading,\u201d the tittle initially appeared in Latin manuscripts beginning in the 11th century as a way of individualizing the neighboring letters i<\/em> and j<\/em> in the thicket of handwriting. With the introduction of the Roman-style typeface in the late 1400\u2019s, the original large mark was reduced to the small dot we use today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the expression, “every jot and tittle,” meaning attention paid to the smallest of concerns, the word jot<\/em> has an interesting etymology of its own. It comes to English as a translation from the Latin word jota<\/em>, which in turn came from the Greek word i\u014dta<\/em>, with that word being of Semitic origins. In its original sense, jot<\/em> refers to a minuscule amount. Today we also use jot<\/em> as a verb to mean hastily writing something down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers may have encountered the phrase, “to a tittle,” likewise relating to a sense of completeness or thoroughness in action. Though it is speculated that the more contemporary “to a T” was derived from references to objects such as a T-shirt, golf tee, or T-square, it is more likely that it finds its origins in the much older phrase “to a tittle.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One notable occurrence of tittle<\/em> is in the King James Bible<\/a> at Matthew 5:18: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tittle<\/em> first appearing in a play is recorded in 1607 in The Woman Hater<\/a><\/em> by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll quote him to a tittle.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tittle<\/em> is also found in Lord Byron’s 1819 story, Don Juan<\/a><\/em>. At that time, a tittle<\/em> was interchangeably known as a jot<\/em>, and used like our contemporary apostrophe to indicate omitted letters in a word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Besides, being less in love, she yawn’d a little,
And felt her veins chill’d by the neighbouring sea;
And so, she cook’d their breakfast to a tittle;
I can’t say that she gave them any tea,
But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, honey,
With Scio wine, \u2014 and all for love, not money.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might also be interested in the headaches of writing news headlines<\/a>, why Pikes Peak is spelled without an apostrophe<\/a> by law, what makes a word autological<\/a>, or the naughty case of expletive infixations<\/a> (NSFW)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the previous<\/a> or next<\/a> Fun Facts About English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Donald's<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I Have Who Has<\/em> activities are perfect for reading, listening, and speaking! Check out our blog post, A Game with Legs<\/a><\/em>, that shows you how to make these activities walk across the room! Click here<\/a> to see all the I Have\/Who Has<\/em> activity sets available in Donald’s English Classroom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A tittle, or superscript dot, is a small diacritic in the form of a distinguishing glyph or jot on a lowercase i and j. Other such diacritics below will be familiar to readers of Spanish: Dictionary.com offers the following definition for tittle: Derived from the Latin word titulus, meaning \u201cinscription, heading,\u201d the tittle initially appeared in Latin manuscripts beginning in the 11th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94],"tags":[1400,103,593,96,596,549,11,539,143,1401,1403,141,1402],"class_list":{"0":"post-2455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fun-facts-about-english","8":"tag-diacritic","9":"tag-donalds-english-classroom-2","10":"tag-etymology","11":"tag-fun-facts-about-english","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-king-james-bible","14":"tag-kinney-brothers-publishing","15":"tag-language-evolution","16":"tag-latin","17":"tag-manuscript","18":"tag-phrase-origins","19":"tag-tittle","20":"tag-typography","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/032.jpg?fit=1252%2C1252&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GlQB-DB","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11070,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/11070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}