[Sca-cooks] Noty or Notye

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Chris Stanifer:
>Now, when it comes to substituting 'V' for 'U', I do have a problem 
>with that, and find it
>unneccesary.  Call me practical, or a whiner, but that's one of my 
>pet peeves (of which I have an
>ample supply).
>
>VVilliam de Grandfort

I can see how the seemingly gratuitous transposition of "V's" and 
"U's" might seem a little pretentious (I _hate_ it when SCAdians 
insist on spelling it "armour", and what is even worse, default to 
the UK spellings of everything as if it somehow more correct).

However, in the matters of V's and U's, there's a reason why you'd 
use one versus the other, and it has little to do with the language 
being used (although, listening to spoken Latin, you might think 
otherwise), but rather, the medium. Block or Roman text carved on 
stone more or less always defaults to a "V", cursive on 
clay-and-stylus or wax-and-stylus often uses both, but sometimes 
defaults to a "U", and quill on parchment usually seems to default to 
a "U". Carved printing blocks, again, often default to a "V".

Which is not to say the transposition is never pretentious and unnecessary...

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04