Subject: ambrette, yet again

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 21:47:34 -0500

Re:

>ambrette, n. A style of cursive handwriting, formerly much used in
>legal draughting because of its resistance to alteration.

   "And in the Gothic script which became common in Germany,
    as well as the German script that developed from it....
    To prevent falsification of a number, the last digit i
    was always lengthened and written as a j."

    -- Karl Menninger, _Number Words and Number Symbols: A
    Cultural History of Numbers_, page 281, chapter 9,
    "Roman Numerals in Cursive Form"

-- Eric  |  [email-masked]

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From: Elliott A Moreton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 22:10:29 -0500 (EST)

>     was always lengthened and written as a j."

But Roman numerals are mostly self-terminating!  Wouldn't the most 
pressing need be for something to prevent anything being added on at the 
*front*?  

Incidentally, I got the idea for this def from the very complicated
characters used for some digits in Japan in circumstances where the
ordinary characters (1 is "-", 2 is "=", three is three horizontal lines) 
would be too easily altered.

>     "Roman Numerals in Cursive Form"

Is this the psychiatrist of that name?  Sounds like an interesting book, 
anyway.

em

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From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 13:06:29 -0500

>    was always lengthened and written as a j."

The last i was written as j even when it was followed by ss (1/2), but not when
followed by x or v. So I don't think it was to prevent falsification.

phma