Re: sound change question

Roger Mills palsalge
>Well-- that's good to know. I had tried, but without success.  In the ca.
>1931 book where w~ was used, however, the tilde was much closer to the top
>of the w.  I wonder how they type-set that-- probably had to devise a
>separate piece of type.
Heh. You're thinking early 1800's. The job press was in use by 1880, and
moveable type outdated not too long after. By the time that book was
printed, they were using an offset press, which definitely had to use
plates rather than type. (A plate is a thin metal sheet with a chemical
coating on it. You took a picture of the item you wanted to print, then
you'd shine light through the negative onto the plate. That "fixed" the
coating, and the rest was washed off. Ink stuck to the chemical well
enough to move it onto the blanket; then it was impressed onto the paper.
You end up with a normal printed page.)

The only problem would be in the creation of the original. A typewriter
modification might have been necessary, but after that there should have
been no problems.

ObMoreOnTopic: my conculture for Sturnan has moveable type and a sort of
typewriter used for some official documents. It operates thusly: Pulling
on a lever drops down a letter (different keys for consonant-with-vowel
and consonant-without-vowel, since the vowels are diacritics, and
different for vowels after the consonant, written above the consonant, and
vowels before, written to the left of it). The letters are made of some
sort of metal or stone, most often limestone, and land on a bed of clay.
When you're finished with the page, you pull another lever, and a
cylindrical weight falls down and presses the letters into the page. Then
the clay can be shaved off (so you don't get a block five inches thick and
three stone) and baked.

~Wright