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The Long S

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11–20 of 83 posts

Re: The Long S

#11
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what am I looking for, but damn, the typography and typesetting of this 400 year old book is mind blowing.

On page 3 the mix of double 'V's for 'W', 'u' for 'v', and 'V' for 'U' ('IESVS' at the top) is quite intriguing.

Interesting to note also the use of ã as shorthand for an, i.e. "the reſidue is in hãd" -> "the residue is in hand"

Re: The Long S

#12
The oldest book in my personal library is from the eighteenth century and frequently talks about the Catholic church ſucking money out of England.

Re: The Long S

#14
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what am I looking for, but damn, the typography and typesetting of this 400 year old book is mind blowing.

On page 3 the mix of double 'V's for 'W', 'u' for 'v', and 'V' for 'U' ('IESVS' at the top) is quite intriguing.

W, v and j were still pretty novel letters at that point. j was typically used as a final form for i/j so you will see things like the roman numeral for 3 represented as iij. V tended to be used for U/V in capitals and u for u/v in lowercase. W was often not a letter that was part of a typefont and writing VV or vv was the only way to represent it in print. The sixteenth century was the point where u and i became the vowel forms and V and j became the consonant forms. Later Latin is inconsistent in its use of u/v and i/j, right down to dictionaries. I remember having difficulty with my pocket Latin dictionary in college because I would often forget that iam was listed as jam in it (and similar instances of an initial consonantal i).

Re: The Long S

#16

So many people confuse it with an ‘f’. E.g. search for the word “Jagermeifter” for a good laugh :-)

Even knowing what it is, I can't help but pronounce it as an "f" just for laughs and to make the spoken form sound as silly as the written form looks to me.

Re: The Long S

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On page 3 the mix of double 'V's for 'W', 'u' for 'v', and 'V' for 'U' ('IESVS' at the top) is quite intriguing.

W, v and j were still pretty novel letters at that point. j was typically used as a final form for i/j so you will see things like the roman numeral for 3 represented as iij. V tended to be used for U/V in capitals and u for u/v in lowercase. W was often not a letter that was part of a typefont and writing VV or vv was the only way to represent it in print. The sixteenth century was the point where u and i became the…

Yes, but there are 'w's in the text. Mixed in the same sentence in one case with a 'vv'.

> ...we ſend you here...you receiued the New...therof shal not now...

> ...impediments, which hitherto haue long hindered this vvorke...

Re: The Long S

#18
post #3

Read the preface to the 1st edition of this thing, and prepare for your mind to be blown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible Keep clicking "next" on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1609_Doway_Old_Testament.... In summary, they (the authors of Douay-Rheims) based their bible translation on Jerome's 4th century Latin translation because they believed that the extant Greek and Hebrew versi…

Why do pages end on a line with a single word set flush right?

Re: The Long S

#20
post #7

I always wondered where the integral sign was coming from. This gives a very simple explanation: it's just the letter 's', the shorthand for sum!

It’s also smoother than the sigma, which visually incorporates the fundamental theorem of calculus.

In general I’m glad we use Leibniz’s notation and not Newton’s, because my handwriting is messy. Though I did use dot and dot dot in physics long ago.

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