lESUS CHRIST!

Gary Chapman, one of the keenest observers in the lowercase L business, makes his comeback with a real money shot.  Upon reading the news, "Vatican misspells Jesus on Pope Francis commemorative coins: Embarrassing gaffe sees Latin inscription call the Christian Messiah 'Lesus'", you might wonder why a typographical error involving an uppercase L, apparently substituted for a J, would qualify for this website.  Only the most experienced lowercase L hunters would recognize that this ungodly gaffe likely occurred when a maladroit minter saw Jesus's name written in Latin, IESVS or Iesus, and misinterpreted the uppercase i to be a lowercase L.

I blame the IllVMINATI for this, and all lowercase L dissent.

Join the lIBRARY

Adrian Bailey (@dadge) submitted the first #lowercaseL via Twitter today.  This story from BBC News explains:

An edit to graffiti on a wall in County Tyrone has become a Twitter hit. 

The graffiti, which was sprayed on a small building in Strabane, originally said 'Join the IRA'. 

An unknown person with a spray can changed it to 'Join the lIBRARY.' 

A photograph of the edited graffiti was tweeted by teacher and writer Brian McGilloway.

If the graffiti artist ever takes claim, will he be ridiculed for the embarrassing use of a lowercase L, or just defacing property?

CHIlE

Lowercase L errors are usually ephemeral, written on cardboard, scribbled on scrap paper, or arranged with letter tiles on a roadside readerboard.  But once in a great while, a lowercase L makes a mark of permanence in the world, and it simply cannot be ignored.

Such is the case with the flawed 50-peso coins minted in Chile in 2008.  Surprisingly, no one noticed the misspelled CHIlE until just a few weeks ago.  Are people so used to writing lowercase L's among all uppercase letters that everyone thought this was passable?

This could be a result of mistaking the uppercase i stamp for an L stamp, or the error could have followed a poorly handwritten note that instructed the Chilean minter to cast the letters CHIlE in metal.  Or perhaps there was a conspiracy to inject the market for erroneous coins with fresh material.

Either way, this may be bigger than the Manhattan Project incident.

Thanks to Adrian Bailey for passing along this news!

Annoyed with ARNOlD

VJ of Berlin found this clip on German daily news service, Tagesschau.de, in which picketers in California are protesting Governor Schwarzenegger and his budget cuts. The sign reads "No more furloughs, NO MORE ARNOlD!" I don't think this was a crunch case, since the author had plenty of room for his oversized exclamation point.

I can just imagine what the Governator would say if he saw his name written like this ...

"L be back!"

The True Administration of Justice ... and Grammar

It was recently pointed out that a famous quote by George Washington, etched in stone above the entranceway to the Supreme Court building in Lower Manhattan, is actually a misquote.

The inscription reads: "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government."

But the actual quote, in a letter Washington wrote in 1789, uses the word "due" instead of "true."

Some people would like to see the error corrected, despite the huge cost it would involve. This is just one example of a growing trend of the self-appointed "Grammar Cops" taking matters into their own hands, doling out citizen's arrests (please don't start with me about whether it should be citizen's or citizens' — I think it could go either way here) both on and offline.

My friend, the Meir of Midwood, sent me this recent MSNBC article about the online word wars, Fastidious spelling snobs pushed over the edge. Many of my fellow grammar cop websites are mentioned, including one of my favorites, The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, which was also recently appointed Entertainment Weekly's Site of the Day. In the article, clinical psychologist Pauline Wallin explains:

An obsession with proper usage may be related to some kind of perfectionist streak, she says, or it could have to do with childhood patterns of wanting to please adults or teachers by doing things right. Putting somebody down by pointing out their bad spelling also could be a power thing. Or it could simply be part of the brain’s natural function.

I'm happy to read that this may be a natural function of my brain. I was beginning to think I was CRAZY to have a blog about lowercase L's improperly used in words otherwise constructed of all uppercase letters.

L in PRINT Magazine

If you happened to catch the November/December 2007 issue of PRINT Magazine — you can't miss it, I just received my complimentary copy in the mail today ... it's HUGE! — you might notice that lowercase L, among other "Strunk and White crowd" blogs, has been noted in the Obsessions section on page 298.

Thanks to Caitlin Dover of PRINT Magazine, and Jeremy D. for his excellent lowercase L photo.

BOSTON GlOBE

Thank you, Carmen Nobel, for your informative article about the lowercase L epidemic in the Online Finds section of The Boston Globe today!

William Levin has a peeve, and it is this: Sometimes, when people create handwritten signs, they choose to capitalize every letter except the letter "L." It bugged him as a child, when he saw a sign for a "YARD SAlE." It bugged him as a college freshman, when his dorm mates made T-shirts advertising themselves as residents of "STONE HAll." It bugged him as an adult, and he decided to blog about it.

Read the rest of the article.

BlOG of Note

While still away on business in lONDON, I am pleased to have learned that lowercase L has been named the Blogs of Note blog for Monday, June 04, 2007! Blogs of Note, which is an official Blogger product, posts a daily list of "Interesting and noteworthy Blogger-powered blogs, compiled by the Blogger Team."

THANK YOU, BlOGGER!

SlOW News Day

Photo by Michael Nagle for The New York Times
I never thought I'd see the day when my quest to understand lowercase L dysfunction would be taken seriously, especially by a reputable publication. But that day has come, my friends. If you can get your hands on The New York Times from the Sunday edition for March 11, you will find "A FlAW HE CAN’T OVERlOOK" in the City section!

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Emily Brady, the lovely New York Times journalist who had been assigned to my story. We spent the morning chatting about the lowercase L blog, how I got started, and where it's going. A few days later I was visited by photographer Michael Nagel, who went out with me on a lowercase L hunt. I explained that I usually do not go hunting for the L—rather, the L finds me. Luckily, we managed to find two fine examples within just a half hour on that frigid day.

The article begins:

Two summers ago, a computer consultant and cartoonist named William Levin was strolling down Seventh Avenue in Park Slope when the window of Jackrabbit Sports caught his eye. Above a display of shoes was a sign advertising marathon and triathlon training programs. An individual with an untrained eye might not have given the sign a second glance. But to Mr. Levin, the chubby capital letters contained a serious flaw.

You can read the rest of the article at the New York Times online.

Special thanks to journalist friend Paul Berger for recommending the story to The Times!

WIlD WIlD RICE

Happy New Year, lowercase L enthusiasts! I just got back from nearly a month abroad in Israel, only to find that this lowercase L blog has been listed on kottke.org as "the best niche blog yet"! So I figured I'd better get back to posting.

I'll start off 2007 with a photo I took shortly before I left for Israel. The difference between L's and i's should be as clear as day and night, but this menu board from Night & Day on 5th Avenue here in Park Slope proves this isn't always the case. Perhaps the author was raised in the WIlD, because no civilized human would write like that.

Yahoo! Picks L

Yahoo! Picks has chosen lowercase L as the WEBlOG of the day for March 4, 2006!

Read the article via Wayback Machine (updated Jan 20, 2018)