by: Charles Nikko Limon 

Have you ever wondered why small letters are called lowercase and big letters uppercase?

When people read newspapers, headlines immediately catch their attention because they are often written in capital letters.

Aside from attracting readers, these letters also emphasize important and pressing issues.

In writing documents, people can choose whether to use lowercase or uppercase letters.

But the terms themselves have a long history.

In ancient times, the Romans were among those known to use only majuscule, or capital letters.

These letters were commonly carved in stone and used for official inscriptions.

As time passed, this method of writing became labor-intensive, slow, and costly in terms of ink.

This led to the development of cursive and more rounded letter forms to make writing faster and easier.

By the third century, early forms of minuscule, or small letters, began to appear.

These were more practical for everyday writing and later became more refined, clearer, and more organized.

In the ninth century, through the Carolingian minuscule system, the use of capital letters for titles and the beginnings of sentences, and small letters for the body of the text, became standardized.

By the 12th century, the combination of both forms of letters had become widespread.

In the 15th century, the invention of the printing press further transformed writing and reading.

Individual letters were arranged one by one, inked, and pressed onto paper.

To avoid confusion, printers stored letters in separate boxes or cases.

Capital letters were placed in the upper case, while small letters were kept in the lower case.

This is how the terms uppercase and lowercase came to be, and why they are still used today.