The Dot Over the Lowercase i

I never knew what to call the dot over the lowercase i other than to call it "the dot over the lowercase i." I have no idea what grade we learned that a dot went over a small i. Or that a dot went over a small j. Or that there was a dot under an exclamation mark, ! Since knowledge is doled out, we probably didn't learn all that in one day. But once you learn it, you don't forget it.

Most things are called something, but the teacher(s) never told us that the dot was called a "tittle." Matt Amodio knew this, he being a recurring contestant on Jeopardy last night in a series of contests called  the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament.

Jeopardy seems intent on developing multiple series of tournaments: Invitational Tournament, Tournament of Champions, and probably a tournament or two to be named later.

The producers seem to be taking a page from the professional sports playbooks, wherein numerous contestants are all lumped together, all former "champions," and put through a series of elimination rounds to yield three contestants that will vie for some title. I'm beginning to wonder if Jeopardy contestants have agents.

Last night's clue needed someone to identify what the dot over a lowercase i or j was called. Matt buzzed in first, got the nod, and said "what is a tittle," Money was added to his score.

Of course Matt saying the word is not the same as spelling the word. I immediately took to my notepad and thought that maybe I've become aware of another homograph: title, (tit-el) for the dot; title for a designation, an honorific. A homograph being two words spelled the same, pronounced differently, and meaning different things, e.g. wind, movement of air; wind to tighten, as to wind a watch. 

Consultation with the OED dashed that discovery. The small dot is spelled tittle; the designation in an honorific or ownership is spelled title. Spelled differently, therefore not a homograph. My daughter Susan will be disappointed we didn't add one more to our list. 

The OED formally defines tittle as: "a small stroke or point in writing or printing, as a tilde, a cedilla, a punctuation or diacritic mark, the dot over the letter i, etc.; gen any stroke or tick with a pen."

That definition finally gets to all you need to know; "...the dot over the letter i."

Case closed? Not really. The definition goes on, (and it's still the first definition) and starts to look like a quadratic equation "...with a pen. LME ►†b The three dots (...) following the letters and contractions in the alphabet on hornbooks, usu. followed by Est Amen. M16-M17. "

The LME means late Middle English. ►†b typically means the word is "obsolete" or "no longer in common use;" the "►" symbol often indicates a special usage note, while the † is a common symbol for marking a word as obsolete. The b refers to the word itself.

"...in the alphabet on hornbooks, usu. followed by Est Amen M16-M17" Hornbooks were used by monks to teach children the alphabet in the middle 16th to 17th centuries. Take it as gospel.

Hey, that part is obsolete, so fugetaboutit!

Since dinner follows Jeopardy, I asked my wife if she knew that the small dot over the lowercase i is called a tittle?

"No. Pour the drinks, will you?"

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