Why are they called Uppercase and Lowercase Letters?
The terms “uppercase" and “lowercase" come from the way in which print shops were organized hundreds of years ago.
Individual pieces of metal type were kept in boxes called cases. The smaller letters, which were used most often, were kept in a lower case that was easier to reach. Capital letters, which were used less frequently, were kept in an upper case. Because of this old storage convention, we still refer to small letters as lowercase and capital letters as uppercase.
The terms “uppercase" and “lowercase" come from the way in which print shops were organized hundreds of years ago.
Individual pieces of metal type were kept in boxes called cases. The smaller letters, which were used most often, were kept in a lower case that was easier to reach. Capital letters, which were used less frequently, were kept in an upper case. Because of this old storage convention, we still refer to small letters as lowercase and capital letters as uppercase.
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