Discussion Groups / English Usage / April 2009

James  wrote to James Hogg on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:03:23 -0400:

I know I should not reply to my own post but I just noticed that the
OED's Thackeray quotation uses " i's " for multiples of the letter. I
seem to remember many posts deprecating the use of an apostrophe for
plurals.

A fuller version of Thackeray's quotation is found in the OED
under "cross":
"I have..crossed the t's and dotted the i's"

I'm sure someone used it before that.

One thing leads to another when you consult a dictionary. I
looked at "jot" and "tittle". The former is the Greek "iota"
while "tittle" could be applied to various additions to letters
(accents, tilde [same word], cedilla) including the dot on the
'i'.

"1538 ELYOT, Punctus, seu punctum, a poynte or tytle. 1552
HULOET, Tytle or prycke in letters, punctus."

The use of the word "prycke" reminded me that the Swedes still
use the word "prick" for dots on letters. The former prime
minister Göran Persson was rumoured to have introduced himself in
English as "Göran, that's Goran with two pricks".

Google Books pushes it back a few decades:

   [Attn Jesse Sheidlower: OED antedating]

   You will perceive that I am not very particular in crossing my t's
   and dotting my i's, but you will please to correct that, as well
   as some errours I may have committed in quoting the poets and such
   fellows...

                         Horace De Monde, "The Club-Room", _The
                         Portico_, Jan., 1817

   Had you not much better have dotted your i's, than made a useless
   dash.

                         _The Leodiensian_, Feb., 1828

   We do not think that he could satisfy the banker, by directing his
   attention to the mere formation of the letters, that the name upon
   a bill was a good name; or that he could convince the lover, by an
   examination of the delicate scrawl of his mistress, that the
   manner in which she crossed her T's, or dotted her I's, rendered
   it quite evident that she would make a very unfitting spouse.

                         _The Edinburgh Literary Journal_, 5/23/1829

   Have we not dotted the i's and crossed the t's, and mended the
   punctuation of a dozen articles, more or less?

                         _The American Monthly Magazine_, December,
                         1830

   The Senate has heretofore been what it was intended to be--a body
   of calm, reflecting men, not disturbed by any agitation
   originating with themselves, but having time to regulate and check
   those of the other branch--having in fact a much more elevated and
   useful duty to perform than merely to dot the i's and cross the
   t's of the other body.

                         _Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia
                         State Convention, of 1829-1830_, 1830

It even shows up in an early urban legend:

   I think this rivals the celebrated story of the Dutch commercial
   house, who saved five hundred dollars a month by directing their
   clerks to cease dotting the i's, and crossing the t's, in keeping
   the books.

                         _Proceedings of the Royal Asiatic Society_,
                         July, 1836