Yesterday a premise was posted here that a German printer might have
typeset the Constitution, because of the capped nouns. I think that this
was a time when the old form was just giving way to the new, so that
documents of the Revolutionary period could go either way. I have some
legal documents here from that time, and, for example, those of 1775 and
1789 have capped nouns, but the ones from 1798 and 1802 do not.
I offer this from B. Bryson's <Made in America> 1994, p. 44-45: single
quotes indicate 'italic'
"That isn't to say that spelling or any other issue of usage in this
period was considered inconsequential. In fact, the opposite. The
Second Constitutional Congress contained within it many men---Jefferson,
Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, John Witherspoon (first president of
Princeton University and the first authority on American English)---who
constantly displayed a passionate interest in language and its
consistent, careful application. They argued at length over whether the
Declaration should use 'independent' or 'independant,' 'inalienable' or
'unalienable,' whether the principal nouns were to capitalized as
Franklin wished or presented lowercase as Jefferson desired (and as was
the rather racy new fashion among the younger set)." [footnote]
The footnote says that Jefferson lowercased, among others, 'nature,'
'creator,' and 'god.' Most were later uppercased by the printer.
=======
And so, rather than there being a German printer, perhaps Benjamin
Franklin won the argument. Or, maybe he didn't, but being a printer. was
able to sneak into the print shop one night and reset the type when no
one was looking.
alyce
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