Dutch "ij"

 --- Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> If you write cursive script, then a j after an i looks like ÿ. But actually
> printing it is silly. Nobody does it. It's two letters, just like the e and
> i in ei.
Twenty-one years ago, when I was eleven, I started a typing course. One of the
most useful things I ever did in my life. Without computers, of course, but on
a good old Scheidegger typewriter instead. The "keyboard" was specifically
Dutch.
The ij-digraph was the home position of the right fifth finger, i.e. next to
the "L" and on the position where my current keyboard has ";".
When I first started working on a computer, I really had to get used to typing
"i" and "j" as separate letters.
Later, when I temporarily return to the typewriter (a still have a lot of
writings from that time), I produced a lot of text with the ij-digraph instead
of a semicolon.
So it was treated as one letter, but only when it was written in lowercase.
When capitalized, it was written "IJ", in two separate capitals. "Ij" would be
very very wrong and very un-Dutch. That is why we always have to switch of the
Word-utility that corrects two initial capitals into one.

JAn

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Reply