Have you ever noticed that the
Tuesday morning meeting
that is supposed to answer
everybody’s questions rarely
does? This is not a new phe¬
nomenon; it has long been
prevalent in business. Now,
unfortunately, it is beginning
to creep into other aspects of
our lives. There are fewer and
less satisfactory answers to
questions like: “Why won’t
my car start?”, “Why isn’t my
report worth an A?”, or “What
do you mean you can’t bal¬
ance the checkbook?”

So it is with the origins of
our alphabet. The seemingly
simple question is “What’s the
origin of the E?” Sorry, but
there’s no simple answer.

Several experts believe that
our E, or at least some of the
sounds it represents, was once
signified by the Egyptian hiero¬
glyph for “house.” Others con¬
tend that it evolved from the
sign that depicted a window.
And still others attribute the
E’s ancestry to the Egyptian
symbol for “courtyard.” To
further complicate matters, our
E, one of the most commonly
used vowels, actually started
life as a consonant.

The Phoenician alphabet
had twenty-two consonant
sounds (vowels were relatively
unimportant), each of which
had a name and a symbol to
represent it in writing. One of
these twenty-two sound sym¬
bols was the precursor to our E.

The Phoenician letter called hé,
which roughly represented our
h sound, was probably the
great-great-grandparent of the
fifth letter of the Latin alpha¬
bet. When the Greeks adopted
the Phoenician alphabet, they
had difficulty pronouncing
about half of the character’s
names, so they modified the
more troublesome characters
to synchronize them with their
own language. Some they
altered only slightly, others
drastically, and others they
dropped altogether.

The Phoenician hé was one
of the problem characters. The
Greeks could not pronounce
the first sound of the letter
name. Being a pragmatic peo¬

ple living in less complicated
times, their solution to the
problem was simply to drop
the part of the name that was
causing the difficulty. As a re¬
sult, the Phoenician hé became
just e—and thus our most use¬
ful vowel was born.

Over time, the Greeks grad¬
ually simplified the design of
the hé, flopping it so that its
arms were pointed to the right.
The end result looked remark¬
ably like the E found in type¬
faces like Helvetica or ITC
Avant Garde Gothic. The final
version was given the name
epsilon and represented a short
e sound.

The E is generally drawn as
a somewhat narrow letter. Its
width, excluding serifs, is ap¬
proximately half its height. The
central arm is almost always
drawn above the true center of
the character, which gives the
letter both balance and pro¬
portion. In some mannered
designs, especially those with
art nouveau overtones, the
central arm is placed quite
high. The central arm is also
usually the shortest of the three
horizontals. The differences in
length should be subtle, but the
central arm should be slightly
shorter than the top arm, and
the top arm not quite as long
as the baseline stroke. These
variations in arm length are
also found in sans serif designs,
although they may not be
immediately apparent.

In some designs, like Ken¬
nedy, the central arm has a
serif, while in others, like
Palatino, it has none. In faces
like ITC Bookman and Caslon,
the serifs at the ends of the
arms are very pronounced.
When established in the E, this
treatment is then usually car¬
ried through the typeface,
reappearing in the F, the L, and
the T, and to some degree in
the Z. In some roman designs,

ITC Ozwald

the serif on the bottom arm
ends in a virtual flourish rather
than a constructed serif. This
exaggeration is further empha¬
sized in faces like Goudy Old
Style, where the whole bottom
stroke curves upward.

I Cochin

E

Goudy Old Style

Because the E is one of the
two letters (the other is Z) that
touch the top and bottom lines
with horizontal strokes, in
handlettered versions some
adjustments may be necessary
to ensure that the height of the
character is not optically dis¬
proportionate with surround¬
ing letters.

Albertus

(

ITC Zapf Chancery

Clarendon Bold

University Roman

ITC Benguiat Bold

ITC Beesknees

ITC Kabel Book

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