{"id":335,"date":"2013-04-29T14:41:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T18:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/chapbook\/?p=335"},"modified":"2013-04-26T15:19:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T19:19:35","slug":"the-latin-s-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/chapbook\/the-latin-s-s\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latin S (\u017f)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you’ve seen already<\/a>, a few chapbooks in the 1700s-1800s were creative in their printing methods. The Cheap Repository, among others, used some neat ligatures, including the \u00e6 (as in “\u00e6ther”), the \u0153 (as in “\u0152dpial”), the “ct” wiggle (no ASCII character, unfortunately), and the Latin \u017f, a character unfortunately recognized by most text-recognition software as an F. It makes for especially interesting work when you’re editing a Biblical tract full of Chriftians, fins, pioufness, wifdom, mifery, paffion, feizing with fudden fits … You get the idea.<\/p>\n

I’m guessing it was something of a 27th letter for a while? Often Ss are replaced with\u00a0\u017fs every time they appear in a word, except as the last letter (as in “di\u017ftre\u017fs” and “\u017fen\u017fations” and “covetou\u017fne\u017fs”).<\/p>\n\n\t\t