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The original Roman alphabet was all upper case. It was used for everything written, and was very well suited to carving on stone.

In time, a smaller alphabet developed for writing on paper, and this was called minuscule as opposed to the upper case, which was called majuscule or capital.

The idea of mixing the two occurred to someone, using majuscule for more important letters, such as the initial letters of paragraphs, but also for the initial letters of sentences, and even of nouns.

In the 18th century, the English began to use the upper case for such important things as the beginnings of sentences and proper nouns. In other countries, the practice was to use the upper case for sentences and all nouns.

The upper case got that name because when the printers' type setters set up their cases for work, there were originally two cases, one set higher than the other, and the capitals went into the upper type case.

Unlike the lower case, which grouped all the most commonly used letters near each other in the center, the upper case was alphabetically laid out. But the alphabet was a little different for English when the type case for the upper case letters was designed. In those days, I and J used the same letter form, and so did V and U. So the letters J and U were not included in the design. When they were added, the type setters were used to things as they were, so the new letters were added at the end. The result is that the upper case alphabet, as it existed in the type setters case, was:

  • A, B, C, D, E, F, G
  • H, I, K, L, M, N, O
  • P, Q, R, S, T, V, W
  • X, Y, Z, J, U

And it still is.

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Q: What is the history of using uppercase letters?
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