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is a variation of the Greek letter mu and the Semetic
mem, which is also the Phoenician word for water. Originally M’s legs were uneven,
perhaps resembling waves, which many scholars believe was a pictograph of water.
In Greek mythology Cadmus, the founder of Thebes,
introduced the Phoenician letters to the Greeks and is
called the father of their alphabet. M is classified as a liquid in modern phoenetic definitiion.
The jagged, uneven M of ancient times rounded in the uncial script, making it recognizable to
the modern lower-case M.
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MODULATION: In relation to typography, modulation means the usually cyclical and predictable variation in width of the stroke. In monochrome (unmodulated) letterforms like Frutiger(*sanserif), the stroke is always fundamentally the same width. In a face such as Bembo or Centaur, the stroke is based on the trace of a broadnib pen, which makes thin cross strokes and thicker pull strokes. When letters are written with such an instrument, modulation automatically occurs.
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