A MINISCULE CHANGE
Posted byGregg Curley March 24, 2022 Leave a commenton A MINISCULE CHANGE
EDITOR’S NOTE: The current temporary theme we are using only credits a single author. This article was written by Jeffrey Amell and Gregg Curley.
This practice makes sense when the medium is stone and the drafting instruments are a hammer and chisel
Take any General Staff – and imagine how much value would be added if that staff instantly became 35 percent more efficient, increased reading speed by 13 percent, and, as a whole, comprehended written orders 22 percent easier—at no cost? Even the best professional military education programs do not come close to that return on investment. However, the US military continues to accept sub-optimal staff performance without justification. OPERATIONAL ORDERS (OPORDS) AND EXECUTE ORDERS (EXORDS) ARE STILL PUBLISHED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS WITHOUT A COMPELLING REASON TO CONTINUE THE PRACTICE AND WITH QUANTIFIABLE DROPS IN EFFICIENCY, READING SPEED, AND EASE OF COMPREHENSION.
How did we get here? Historically, Latin words carved into stone used block letters called “roman square capitals.” Roman square capitals are “majuscule letters,” meaning letters with sharp angles and a uniform height. This practice makes sense when the medium is stone and the drafting instruments are a hammer and chisel. By contrast, smaller script with more curves and variable heights—”miniscule script”—was used for writing with a quill. Scripts did not start to use a combination of majuscule and minuscule letters until about the 8th or 9th century, mostly for decorative purposes. For the next 500 years, stylistic use of mixed case lettering evolved into a system that resembles what we use today. Moveable type appeared alongside and is an integral component of the printing press. Moveable type was kept in cases. The case with the more commonly used letters is placed closest to the typesetter. The case with the less commonly used letters is kept above it. This typesetter placement of the upper and lower cases of moveable type gave rise to the terms upper- and lower-case to refer to letters. The modern rules of capitalization (and spelling, for that matter) were not fully developed until the 19th century. (This fact explains the apparently random capitalization in both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. When those documents were drafted, capital letters were commonly used for emphasis.)
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/a-miniscule-change/
