Sorry Pokerm of course I was only talking about lower case a (then again should have been obvious from context). Ambigram is a word I thought I didn't know but having Googled it I think I did; where is the beautiful example above? An a doesn't look to me like a perfectly inverted e but that would depend on the font I presume. But why doesn't an a look like an a?

Apologies, sir, I got my threads mixed up.  I had posted the ambigram elsewhere! 

You don't have to call me sir. Most people used a four letter word rather than three.

A very disappointing answer Pokermonster. I thought you would be the font of all knowledge on fonts. An upside down a would be easy to mix up with an e for typesetters which would surely be a disadvantage. Sorry but can't remember the technical term for the compartments that typesetters put their letters in. In evolutionary terms it doesn't scan for me.

The ɑ you prefer is obviously based on the Greek symbol for alpha.

Thank you Pm.
Still don't understand why the typographical a was invented, I'm assuming that the single-story a came first. Now I've said that I have no idea which one came first. It's not a preference by the way but was a problem when trying to prepare learning materials.

It appears the change came about in Roman times (no pun intended).

Just scanned it and seems it was the Greeks and Romans but still doesn't explain why typesetters used it.

lfc
Interesting, was getting on to g later but that seems to have disappeared somewhat now.

That will do me for now, thanks for discussion enjoyed it. And newsflash from lfc.

it is quite difficult to mamufacture a single story a and for it to remain clear and precise

it is not any more difficult to manufacture in that sense, just that with time the single story becomes a o

early typeset manufacturers did not like the idea of the double line that comes down the side of the single story a, quite apart from the problem of the small final tail which tended to wear off

sorry about that poker

Did you ever see Stephen Fry's documentary on the Gutenberg Bible, LFC?  An absolutely fascinating study of early printing methods.

yes Pokermonster thanks, i had seen it and watched it again When you saw the replica printing press that they built and the quality of the print on the page it really was better than you would think possible.
a technology that lasted 500 years.

Fascinating thread - justification, letter-spacing, rivers etc ... must surely be a few old Hot Metal Compositors, Readers, Linotype Operators or Monotype Caster Operators on here ...?

Yea pretty much zorro - still a few big printing companies producing books and magazines or specialising in very high quality print such as art catalogues etc. All the small commercial jobbing companies are pretty much obsolete along with the above-mentioned trades.