The rules for using "ſ" (long s) | Hacker News Reader

The rules for using "ſ" (long s)

babelstone.blogspot.com

71 pointsthristian38 comments

'ſ' is just an 's'. It's a typographic variation carrying no semantics. The proper way to reproduce it in a new medium is simply to use 's' everywhere. To do this is no more unfaithful to the original work than using Times Roman on the screen when the original was printed in Caslon.

You seem to be completely missing the point of this article. What are you contending? That there was no difference between s and ſ, and that they were used in free variation? Or that there is no need to know anything about ſ today because it is no longer in use? In either case, as I said, you've missed the point.

I'm taking issue with the decision stated in the first sentence: "In my previous post about the grand old trade of basket-making I included several extracts from some 18th century books, in which I preserved the long s (ſ) as used in the original printed texts".

To what end? Do you suspect that the author thinks there was another letter of the alphabet in the 18th century?

No. I merely think he's missing the forest for the trees by preserving one obsolete typographic detail in a historical text yet translating the whole thing into HTML with minimal styling. This is somewhat akin to completely remodeling a 100-year-old building yet insisting on preserving the original knob-and-tube electrical wiring for authenticity -- you lose all the original charm yet you're still stuck replacing fuses twice a day and offending your readers every time the word 'succor' appears.

So “proper” just refers to your aesthetic preference, not to any actual rule?

Uh, somewhere in between, I think. I'm contending that one way is logical, conventional, and clear, and the other way is illogical, odd, and confusing. I think that's a stronger statement than just an aesthetic preference, but I'm not citing anyone else's prescription.

I don’t get it. Seems awfully petty. It just a blogger and what he did is not in any way wrong. I could understand you if he had made any statement to the effect that everyone should do it like him but he absolutely did not.

I agree, but I think the author does too. As far as I see, there is no claim that we should reproduce the long s as such in quotations where it’s not at issue. It’s only presented as a matter of historical interest.

(Before this, I had thought that in certain times and places it was not used at the end of syllables, which would have carried information in the same way that hyphenation does.)

As far as I see, there is no claim that we should reproduce the long s as such in quotations where it’s not at issue.

He not merely claimed, but did, exactly that in the article linked from the first sentence.

Given that the blog is about fetishizing the look and feel of old writing and inscription, I’d say it is at issue there.

What does “proper” mean? The author merely says that he decided to use the long s in one of the texts he quoted, he makes no claim that everybody should quote texts containing the long s just like that. I can see nothing wrong with that as long as the author doesn’t claim that to be the only “proper” way to do it. (He does not.)

This is what he says about his choice in the linked article: “I’ve copied out one of my favourite stories below (complete with long s for authenticity) […]” To me, this points to an explicitly aesthetic decision, not an invention of a rule for the proper use of the long s in quoted texts.

Wow, This was a pleaſure to read! This is the quinteſsential obſcure but captivating topic that nerds like us love. I'm impreſsed by the level of detail that was put into this.

I found it very interesting to see how the 'ſ' directly followed by a 's' were combined into the ligurature 'ß'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß

Agreed. It's particularly evident here:

http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/Images/Micrographia.jpg

Understanding that `fs' was mostly a typographical device for adding more flair to a line certainly makes the German deprecation of the `ß' in favor of `ss' more palatable.

>Not to be confused with its capital form, ẞ, the Latin letter B, or the Greek letter β (beta).

I know I won't, now that I've been warned.

It's not addressed in the article, but I've always wondered whether maybe long-s was kept around for so long as an affectation of the Greek terminal-sigma, in much the same way that classically-educated English speakers would refuse to split infinitives just because it was impossible to do in Latin.

The 1745 example has another interesting usage: "it's" where we would write "its". When did this become improper? And could it be that all those endless typo "it's"es online nowadays are not part of a plot to drive me crazy after all, but rather the return of some older norm?

I would suspect that there were some other rules for apostrophes some centuries ago, but maybe it's/its is some typo that has been in the English language for centuries?

While talking about the English language, does anyone know what happened to thou/thee/thy/thine/ye?

Just natural evolution of language saw them superseded by alternative words of the same meanings.

The same way in a short period of time words like "cool", "wicked", "fab. [abbrv.]" can rise and fall in cultural popularity, so can words like "thou" and "you".

Thou/thee/thy/thine are singular forms, whereas you/ye/your are plural. Just as we and our became royal pronouns, where a monarch would emphasize that they spoke for a whole country by referring to themselves in the plural, it became popular for the upper and eventually middle classes to refer to each other as plural, as a more respectful or formal usage.

Quoting from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou):

"Following a process found in other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect, while another pronoun, you, the oblique/objective form of ye, was used for formal circumstances"

Interesting - I've read that the common pronunciation where we use "Ye" pronounced as "Yee" is a mistake - it was always pronounced "The"

It's a vestige of how the Thorne transformed over the years - eventually it looked very similar a Y with a small "e" above it... leading to someone looking at an old document to assume it was just a Y.

We could be talking about two separate uses of the word though....

Thou/thee/thy/thine are still alive in parts of England.

Once, everyone used "'tis" instead of "it's", so there was no danger of confusion with the possessive.

<http://www.word-detective.com/back-d.html>;

That seems like a pretty good website; I'd never heard of it.

So "it's" vs. "its" is yet another johnny-come-lately arbitrary rule without historical basis. Yay, one less thing to get annoyed by.

I've always wondered this, but I could never figure out how to google it.

...I'm juft glad we ftopped ufing it.

Actually, long s is still very frequently used, and will never become extinct. Look at the integral sign! Long live long s.

Could someone sum up for me why integration uses "S"? It doesn't square with me, nor does it add up.

wikipedia tells me it is because S stands for the latin word summa.

Exactly.(Riemann) integral is summation with infinitesimal quantities. (It was Leibniz who used long s to denote integration, though. http://jeff560.tripod.com/calculus.html ) Also, for discrete summation, capital 's'igma is used.

For a great explanation of how integral relates to summing the product of infinitely many terms, see: http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-calculus-analogy-integ...

I find the long f confufing and hard to read. Pleafe do not revive it.

It's not a long f, it's a long ſ

I was demonstrating how my brain parses its use.

Perhaps your brain juſt needs more conditioning. Sign up for more long ſ training seſsions today!

The long-s was used in the middle or the beginning of a word. It was not used as the last letter of a word - the last letter would be a standard/short/miniscule s.

Per a wikipedia example - ſinfulneſs ("sinfulness")

...Did you read the article? It discusses that rule and how it is not a complete description of the actual use of the character.

Ingenious. This article served to clarify something I had wondered about for years.

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