Was it ever correct to write the letter 'N' backwards

Factual Questions
1

In an encyclopedia article about the American westward movement, I saw a picture of a train station with the words, ‘UNION PACIFIC DEPOT’. But the N’s in Union were printed backwards. Yet, the sign looked well-enough made that you would think the person who made it would have known which way an ‘N’ is supposed to be written.

Yet a backwards N is vaguely reminiscent of the handwritten version of the letter when the writer doesn’t round off the top of the letter, so it doesn’t seem quite so “wrong” as it otherwise might.

Anyone know anything about this?

2

Apparently, there is a Russian character that looks sort of like a backwards N, but in English, I’ve never heard of a backwards N being correct.

3

Seems like I’ve seen that a few times too, on old gravestones in Newfoundland.

4

I don’t know if it was correct in the past,but my memories of backwards Ns come from Our Gang and similar kid movies.I always put it down as a formally uneducated person.

The most prominent example of that style I’ve ever seen, was a hand written sign I saw years ago in a rural road in the Bristol Va.area nailed to a tree IIRC, advertising MORM (backward) S for sale.

I still wonder to this day what that author looked like.And how his business was doing :slight_smile:
I had visions of a Snuffy Smith progeny.If you’d ever seen the area the association was obvious.

5

The backwards N in cyrillic is the “ee” sound, I believe.

6

You’re correct, the printed version of the Cyrillic letter “i” (pronounced like the I in “bits” or the “ee” in “bees”) looks like to a backwards Latin “N”. The cursive version, which is used in most handwritten Russian, looks similar a lowercase Roman “u”.

More information about the Cyrillic alphabet is available at: http://www.colby.edu/library/collections/technical_services/wp/Cyrillic.html

7

Here’s an example of the correct way to use a backwards “N” in English. :slight_smile: