

Miscellany № 59: the percent sign - bootload
http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2015/03/percent-sign/

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MatthewWilkes
This article feels unfinished. The first example given, of the elongated c
with superscript o is not justified. Why the elongation? Why the superscript
o? Is this a common pattern in medieval Italian?

Next, it jumps to something very much resembling the modern percent sign
without an argument as to why it's the same thing. Why would the c close? Why
would the p be omitted? Is the bottom symbol a modified c or a modified p? Why
did the elongation get detached from the C and move above?

~~~
danbruc
Most of the time it is laziness and writing or wanting to write quickly. See
for example also the Dollar sign [1].

[1] [http://observationdeck.io9.com/why-is-the-dollar-sign-a-
lett...](http://observationdeck.io9.com/why-is-the-dollar-sign-a-
letter-s-1683940575)

~~~
MatthewWilkes
Sure, and I can see that at least somewhat with pc⎻⎻̊ as a lazy "ent" being
flattened, but I'd be interested as to why the o is superscripted rather than
simply distinguishable at the end of the word, as well as knowing if it was
usual to include the 'o' when writing lazily.

Secondly, the '-̥̊'[1] character actually looks like it'd be slower than '㍶'
so it's a little counter intuitive why it would happen this way.

I'd like to see references to other similar developments or precedents, rather
than a three stage theory, especially when stage 2 and 3 are so similar.

[1] - This looks brilliant in a monospace font, but crap in view mode, but I
spent minutes getting it right so it's staying. It's the 2nd example from TFA.

