🥯 Today’s Bite
The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.
Every language has its quirks…
But English hides one of its most charming secrets in plain sight:
The tiny dot floating above your i and j has a name —
And it sounds like something straight out of a children’s fantasy book.
It’s called a tittle.
A word you didn’t know you needed.
A detail you didn’t realize mattered.
A piece of writing history that has survived for centuries.
Let’s zoom way, way in.
🔎 A Tittle is More Important Than It Looks
Today, the tittle feels decorative — almost cute.
But historically?
It was a survival mechanism.
In medieval script, letters weren’t crisp and sharp.
Everything looked like dense forests of identical vertical strokes — called minims.
Words like:
minimum
illumination
indivisibility
Became long, wiggly mazes of lines.
Without tittles, readers would get lost.
So scribes added tiny marks above letters to make them stand out.
In other words:
The tittle wasn’t born for style.
It was born to prevent medieval migraines.
✒️ Tittles Used to Look Different (and Not So Cute)
In early handwriting:
Some tittles were slanted strokes
Some looked like commas
Others were miniature flicks or dashes
A few were almost like tiny eyebrows
The perfectly round dot we use today only became standard once metal-type printing arrived in the 15th century.
The Renaissance didn’t just give us Michelangelo and da Vinci —
It gave us aesthetically pleasing tittles.
A win for typography everywhere.
📜 Even Ancient Texts Mention Tittles
The word “tittle” is old — older than most of the language you speak today.
It appears in early English translations of the Bible, famously in:
“Not one jot or tittle shall pass…”
Here:
Jot = the smallest Greek letter
Tittle = the smallest distinguishing stroke in Hebrew letters
Meaning:
“Not even the tiniest detail will change.”
So long before autocorrect existed, people cared deeply about tiny marks.
💡 Why Modern Designers Still Obsess Over Tittles
Even in the digital age, designers treat the tittle as a crucial design element.
It affects:
1. Readability
Especially in paragraphs, where missing tittles create visual noise.
2. Programming Fonts
Developers rely on a clear i/I/1 distinction.
3. Brand Personality
Think of:
Pinterest’s little tittle
Spotify’s round tittle
Disney’s handwritten-style tittle
One dot. Infinite character.
4. Visual Balance
Remove the tittle, and the whole letter feels… naked.
The tittle is the ultimate tiny-but-mighty detail.
🧬 Etymology: Why Is It Called “Tittle”?
The word comes from the Latin titulus, meaning:
a small distinguishing mark
a title
a label
Over time, the meaning shrank — perfectly matching the mark itself.
Language humor is rarely this poetic.
🤣 And Yes — It’s the Origin of “Tittle-Tattle”
The phrase tittle-tattle originally meant:
“Small talk made up of tiny, trivial details.”
In other words:
chatter made of… tittles.
You’ll never hear that phrase the same way again.
🥯 Final Crumb
Writing feels simple, but behind every letter is a long lineage of scribes, printers, designers, and linguists — all working to make reading easier.
So the next time you type a lowercase “i”, remember:
You’re not just adding a dot.
You’re adding a tittle —
a tiny piece of history, clarity, and design that has quietly shaped how the world reads.
The smallest mark in the alphabet…
and one of the oldest stories.
That’s it for today. See you in the next edition!
Team Bagel Sync