Why is the MIT dome have "v's" in place of "u's"?

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>Like in Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the dome on the website, and elsewhere have a v in place of the u, so it reads “Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology” Why is this the way it is? I’m sure its something every obvious, but I’m just too dumb to notice :)</p>

2

<p>It’s a typo.</p>

3

<p>from my limited knowledge, in sculpture, its much easier to carve in straight lines than in curved. thats why in many roman inscriptions its “v” instead of “u”.</p>

4

<p>A chisel has a straight edge so carving curved features is difficult.</p>

5

<p>because it’s sexy</p>

6

<p>Agreed with Peach Chardonnay and tongchen. When I first looked at the dome, I thought that the U’s were actually nablas (upside down deltas) xD</p>

7

<p>If you read (i.e. look at) the Declaration of Independence you’ll notice that “u” was written “v”…</p>

<p>MIT was founded in the 1860’s and most educated people still wrote script like the original founding fathers.</p>

8

<p>I’m going to assume none of you have studied Latin.</p>

<p>In classical latin, the figure v represents both the consonant v and the vowel u. The letter u doesn’t exist in latin. So when there is anything classical/formal/trying to recall the wonders of the classical latin romanticized world, they adhere to the rules of classical latin and use v’s in place of english u’s.</p>

9

<p>foldedpaper’s makes the most sense I think.
the S’s in Massachusetts are curved way more aren’t they?</p>

10

<p>hahahah this is so dumb :)</p>

<p>but yeah foldedpaper is right</p>

11

<p>It is most definetely a typo. After they typo’ed once and realized backspace/delete didn’t exist yet and whiteout wasn’t going to cut it, they thought they could be clever and just propagate the typo everywhere, claiming it was the “it” thing to do.</p>

12

<p>^lmao, my thinking exaclty</p>

13

<p>Because they want to change the pronunciation of “Massachusetts” to “Massachvsetts”. They just like Vs.</p>

14

<p>Erosion over time of the curves on the "u"s. </p>

<p>But foldedpaper is also right.</p>

15

<p>foldedpaper beat me to it…definately because there were no u’s in real latin.</p>

<p>but a funny story: during my visit, my tour guide told me it was just the “font” they used…this was an actual student there! I laughed in my head…</p>

16

<p>It is a font- latin font, and it is a font that MIT uses. You can get the same font on MWord.</p>