The Comma Started Out as a Slash, and It Has Cost People Millions

22/10/2026

A comma looks like a period that kept going. A dot with a small tail, hanging just below the baseline....

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The Period Is the Smallest Glyph in Your Font, and One of the Hardest to Get Right

21/10/2026

It’s a dot. It sits on the baseline, takes up almost no room, and ends nearly every sentence you’ve ever...

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Uppercase “Z” Was Fired From the Alphabet, Then Rehired to Close It Out

12/10/2026

Every letter in this series has had some kind of journey, but “Z” is the only one that was officially...

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Uppercase “Y” Is a Greek Import That Spent Centuries Being the Alphabet’s Odd One Out

11/10/2026

The Romans didn’t need “Y.” Latin had no sound for it. They added it anyway, and for a long time...

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Uppercase “X” Marks the Spot — and Also Everything Else

10/10/2026

Almost no English words start with “X.” The letter barely shows up in everyday spelling at all. And yet it...

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Uppercase “W” Didn’t Exist for Most of Western History — Literally

09/10/2026

We covered this story at the lowercase level earlier in this series, but it’s worth saying plainly again at full...

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