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Carpal Tunnel
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I kinda like this one; it's cute. There are three in the previous sentence.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Anna, and must tell you that I liked his title. So ppphhhbbbtttt!  Good one!
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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jot and tittle to me are like sugar and cream, salt and pepper. i always think of the two paired.
(and i'll leave it to Fr Steve or other to cite chapter and verse!)
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Carpal Tunnel
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three in the previous sentence
Which one doesn't count?
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Carpal Tunnel
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oops... Four. I suffer from dyscalculia.
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Carpal Tunnel
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jot and tittle to me are like sugar and cream, salt and pepper. i always think of the two paired. This is one I'm not familiar with. Is a jot what the cross of a t is called? (As in "dot your i's and cross your t's".) Or does the phrase refer to something else altogether?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Are jot and iota related?
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veteran
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veteran
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Are jot and iota related?
Yes, both via Latin from Greek from the Hebrew letter name yodh 'hand'.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Jot or tittle is an idiom which means any small thing. Curiously, it is close in origin to the idiom which commands attention to every small detail: dot the is and cross the ts. (That is one place where the urge to use an inappropriate apostrophe is almost irresistible). Jot is a variant of iota, the Greek name for the letter i. Iota is still used alone to mean something small, generally by negation: there is not one iota of evidence …; in exactly the same way it might be said there is not a jot of evidence … The meanings are identical.
The ambivalence between jot and iota is not surprising: until early in the nineteenth century, i and j were facets of the same letter. In the first edition of Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), the entry next after hystericks is I, and it contains a discussion of that letter, followed by its meaning as the first person singular pronoun. The next entry is jabber, followed by other words beginning ja-. After jazel comes ice; after idyl comes jealous, and so on. So it remained in all the editions in Johnson’s lifetime. However the 8th edition, edited by Dr Todd (1818) recognizes that i and j have ceased to be facets of the same thing, and have separated into 2 different letters. Iota and jot are small reminders of the way it was.
So a jot is simply the letter i.[e.a.] A tittle is any diacritic mark in text, such as an accent, a cedilla or a tilde. Nowadays, it refers specifically to the dot above the letter i. So reference to every jot and tittle is a reminder of the importance of dotting the i.
-Julian Burnside
[my reading: jot and tittle is a pleonasm]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, Mr. B. may be correct in saying that Nowadays, it refers specifically to the dot above the letter i. However, none of the listings in Onelook say anything about that. The ones that have the diacritic def. all simply say cedilla, dot, etc. This makes me think of comparing tittle to whiskey and bourbon: all bourbons are whiskies but not all whiskies are bourbons. The dictionaries seem to say that tittle is whiskey. But acc'g. to Mr. Burnside it's a bourbon! (Yeah, well, I haven't been awake very long.) As to those "inappropriate apostrophes": all I can say is that I still think that i's gets the meaning across quicker than is does. [defiant head toss e] Now: y'all take a look at a couple of things I found at Onelook: 1.) Go to http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/wn?cmd=wn&word=tittle and take a gander at the section called "Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun tittle". I've never seen any other place that includes a list like that. 2.) Surprise!
Date: Mon Jan 3 00:19:30 EST 2000
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--tittle
X-Bonus: The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
tittle (TIT-l) noun
1. A small diacritic mark, such as an accent, a vowel mark, or a dot
over an i.
2. The tiniest bit; an iota.
[Middle English titil, from Medieval Latin titulus, diacritical mark,
from Latin, title, superscription.]
"Reporters and editors crave detail, down to the dot and tittle, and
assume as much about the reader, listener or viewer."
Deborah Mathis, Clinton: The Arkansas view, USA Today, 17 Jan 1994.
Ever wondered if there is a word for that dot over the letter i, or what to
call that fleshy fold of skin hanging from the throat of a rooster? Ever spent
a weekend trying to find out what to call those vertical grooves on the side
of a coin, or if there is a term for the big toe? Relax, help is at hand. This
week's AWAD answers these and a few other questions that may be keeping you up
at night. (-: -Anu
http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0100
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