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For W and M (Woman and Man) there is equal logoey balance logologically.

However for M and F (Male and Female) the orientation just the logo of the letter F is sideways at a 90° angle change and drops a line. That is not the case of W and M which seem to have greater logorythmic equality.

As language change and language evolution occured is there any trace why and if there was explicit reasoning? What field traces the designed(?) lettering of wording? Either for the full word attached/associated, or reasoning if such words were chosen for their given first letter effects?

After asking by word of mouth I never heard a reason why, is it numerology er letterology (the math and lettering is often used to sort and organize web data not just official forms, just the MW/MF are often biased in their ordering as well not any official rule, seemingly) or maybe is there a history?

Given the significance, why is M/F not homogenously balanced like W/M is?

prosody-Gabe Vereable Context
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    I’m voting to close this question because its meaning and purpose are so far from clear that it is unlikely to be salvageable. – Michael Harvey Nov 17 '20 at 12:51
  • @MichaelHarvey I am just asking about the letter shaping. Maybe the word "shaping" would help make basic? – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 12:51
  • Typograpohy/orthography is still off-topic unless I miss mu guess. Also your question is not clearly written. – Michael Harvey Nov 17 '20 at 12:54
  • @MichaelHarvey Ah, well so it's a typography question? I had to ask to know that. Okay do what needs to be done, I thought it might be an English question, I read https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/37411/where-did-the-names-of-english-letters-come-from-and-why-are-they-all-monosylla and thought maybe it would fit. – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 12:55
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    Okay, the letter F was created with 2 points to the right. The letter M with 3 points down. Therefore, you believe that the design started with the idea that those letters begin the words Female and Male? – Yosef Baskin Nov 17 '20 at 13:48
  • @YosefBaskin Well, hmm, good point, either that direction, or, the words developed first based partly at being because of the 'first letter effect'? I am not trying to bring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_letter_effect in too deeply, just maybe as worthy artifact (the particular answer given with https://english.stackexchange.com/a/37414/9515 mentioned the similarly weird feeling/matching "A means/points Ox" meaning I read/heard about too). Thank you for saying "points" to describe, I appreciate the lexical change helps, I did not know that's how to describe it, your way sounds better. – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 14:25
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    I’m voting to close this question because it is not about English Language or Usage, but about the development of letter shapes. – Hellion Nov 17 '20 at 14:41
  • @YosefBaskin - where does that leave W? Is that a man standing on his head? And E a woman with big feet? – Michael Harvey Nov 17 '20 at 15:34
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    @prosody-GabVereableContext - what are you smoking? I want some. – Michael Harvey Nov 17 '20 at 15:35
  • @MichaelHarvey I was making logos in Photoshop when I was 10, and straight sober too. I also did font work flipping letters with web design, and AdWords training about what words/letters to put first (written by Google employees), for money and got paid. Do you always ask for drugs in the English section, Harvey? – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 16:01
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    @MichaelHarvey - If there's a fan of the conjecture that letters came first, then words, then word meanings, it's not me. I was trying to avoid calling unusual ideas bizarre. – Yosef Baskin Nov 17 '20 at 16:17
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    @YosefBaskin To start, you just said "the conjecture that letters came first, then words, then word meanings", is there a name for that? Interesting conjecture, needs a name. (Otherwise, I appreciate your effort to say "unusual", a word I've often used, I agree. Or 'uncommon' works too.) – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 16:22
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    This has to be hands down the best question, ever, asked here. My initials are M.F. Ha, this caught me eye, and, then, I read the question. Brings me all the way back to, "... the 14th century." 14 = 10^1 +4 ---> 114, which is 411 in reverse. Now, I'm wondering what my middle initial, H, has to do with this. Question copied and pasted, for posterity. – G. Rem laughs at the MonicaC's Nov 17 '20 at 23:08

1 Answers1

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The words man and woman came from man and a compound of that and wif (the same word that shifted meaning and became wife). However, the populace who first used those words would not have seen the “equal logoey balance logologically”. These Proto-Germanic speakers, if they were even able to read at all, would have used letters that weren’t M and W. English was written in runes before it switched to the Latin alphabet, which used ᛗ and ᚹ (the mann and wyn runes, respectively).

Also, perhaps it is wrong to look so closely at man, when wif was so frequently paired with another word for male human, wer (which is still found in werewolf). Just look at Beowulf: “wera ond wifa” (“men and women”), and other Old English literature such as The Fortunes of Men and The Phoenix. (In fact I do not see a single example of “man” paired with any word for woman in the OE poetry examples given by Binomials in the History of English: Fixed and Flexible. And even the Middle English Dictionary makes note of wer and wif as a collocation.)

And male and female are just simply two words that have no etymological connection at all. Or at least they didn’t until the 14th century when the spelling of femelle was changed to resemble that of male.

Laurel
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  • I am trepid hesitating to say ᛗ and ᚹ (the mann and wyn runes) share a pattern there with the triangle if you turn one to the side, or maybe if you double the mann and wyn runes, but even I am scared of sounding like Numerology might apply to Linguistics, so hold me back please. I mean I think human beings making decisions like "That letter looks like that letter." could have been prodigious and productive (and maybe grammatical Mirror Neurons be damned to Geometry as well too). [Oh and Thankyou. :} I never fully placed/understood the Runes before Latin part before now, even w/ a Latin class!] – prosody-Gabe Vereable Context Nov 17 '20 at 18:28