“Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
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Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#2The book linked to is a really interesting slice of 1680s culture.
Kathy: "But they can't hide it [having sex] from God, who sees and knows all things"
Frank: "God who sees and knows all things will say nothing; besides, I cannot think leachery a sin, I am sure if Women govern'd the world and the Church as men do, you would soon find they would account fucking so lawful, as it should not be accounted a Misdemeanor."
Kathy: "I wonder men should be so rigorous against a thing they love so well."
Frank: "Only for fear of giving to much liberty to the Women, who else would challenge the same liberty with them, but in fine, we wink at one anothers faults, and do not think swiving a hainous sin, and were it not for fear of great Bellys, if it were possible swiving would be much more used then now it is."
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#3As part of my History major I did a subject on Witchcraft in Europe, which involved a lot of primary texts from the early modern period. You certainly get faster the more you read, but I always did a double take when the text discussed the familiars (think black cats) "sucking their mistresses".
To go OT, the "witch's teat" was a superfluous nipple for feeding their satanic familiars, and was even used as evidence to convict some witches.
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#4Fun fact, the integral symbol is in fact this long S (as in 'sum' or 'ſum').
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#5As part of my History major I did a subject on Witchcraft in Europe, which involved a lot of primary texts from the early modern period. You certainly get faster the more you read, but I always did a double take when the text discussed the familiars (think black cats) "sucking their mistresses". To go OT, the "witch's teat" was a superfluous nipple for feeding their satanic familiars, and was even used as evidence to…
It gets even more fun if you go back to the medieval grimoires, like the Munich Manual. Medieval Latin is tricky in both orthography and its linguistic departures from classical Latin.
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#6Fun fact, the integral symbol is in fact this long S (as in 'sum' or 'ſum').
You would do well to heed Wikipedia's advice[0].
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#7Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#8I’ve actually used the long S in a comment here on Hacker News before:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7300266
(It was in a quote from 1788.)
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#9"Last month, I came across a recently digitized book from 1680 with the innocuous-sounding title The School of Venus."
Funny. I read that title and assumed it was erotica.
Venus is the goddess of love. The title is also rather similar to one of the most famous pieces of erotic literature of all time, Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus.
Re: “Why Does S Look Like F?”: A Guide to Reading Very Old Books (2013)
#10"Anything is readable"
Has anyone deciphered the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript yet?