Hacker News Reader

Comment by crux | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com