My 13-year-old niece called last night to ask me if I knew the word for the dot that appears above the lowercase “i” and “j.”
“It’s a tittle,” she managed to say between giggles. “Tittle.”
I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. After all, the French have a word for a man who rubs up against strangers in a crowd (frotteur); the Germans call the space between things Zwischenraum; wabi is the Japanese word for a flawed detail that creates an elegant whole.
There’s even a Scottish word for the act of hesitation before recognizing a person or thing: tartle. Which means that, when I’m asked to read from the eye chart during my next visit to the optometrist, there’s a chance I’ll tartle at the sight of a tittle.
I can’t wait.
