Post #566927 by The Gnomon on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 11:14 AM

On 2010-11-18 21:22, Unga Bunga wrote:
Why in the hell is the letter d facing left, and the capital D is facing right?

I Want Answers Mister!

When the typography known as Uncial came along, that's when the miniscule "d" began facing left.

In Uncial, the letter "d" is made like and upside down majiscule "Q". It's round with the tail pointing upwards. The particualr way it was written connected the ascender (in thes case, the upside down tail) to the right-hand side of the character.

When the type evolved into Half-Uncial and Visgothic, they straightened the ascender, which naturally fell to the right.