01 March 2018
· Tempest-uous typographical trivia ·
There are times when I waxe noſtalgicke for the olde ſpellinges, but never do I miſſe the long or medial ſ, which I am happy to ſay I helped to kill. You may chooſe to believe it or not as you wiſh, but the following ſtory of the ſucking bee is goſpel.
from The Gradual Disappearance
of the Long S in Typography
from The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1, in the First Folio
Mathematicians since Leibniz have used the ∫ form for integrals. They can have it.
And if you think I didn’t know what I was writing at the time I wrote it, you might be on the wrong page. Try this one.
Sources/Additional Reading
- • Banner image: a very come-hithery Ariel [wikimedia.org]
- · from The Works of Shakspere, with notes by Charles Knight, 1873
- • The Gradual Disappearance of the Long S in Typography [historyofinformation.com]
- • Of the Long and Short S by Alice196498 [imgur.com]
- • The Bodleian First Folio [ox.ac.uk]
- • In my post of 01 October 2019, Proving My Pudding, I include another example of ambiguous medial ſ typography, from a 1675 cookery book. This one would fry John Bell’s eyeballs.
VERO NIHIL VERIUS