#long s

The excerpt in question from this post...

@itsmedontpanic Oddly enough it's from a British Parliamentary debate about colonial taxation in 1774.

"Mr. Burke" was Edmund Burke, an Irish MP very critical of British policy in the American colonies, and "Mr. Grenville" was George Grenville, the recently deceased former Prime Minister who implemented the Stamp Act.

I have no abſolute freaking clue as to why, but I quite ſimply adore the long s (this ſ character) as uſed in more archaic Engliſh texts and I am learning how to uſe it correctly for that reaſon. Alſo partially becauſe I'm writing hiſtorical fiction and need to learn how to uſe it for my protagoniſt's journal entries.

When to uſe the long s:

In the middle of a word. Uſage for usage.

On the first of a double s. Congreſs for Congress.

At the beginning of a word, assuming it is not the beginning of a sentence. Not Sentence, but ſentence.

When not to uſe the long s:

At the beginning of a sentence. Sentence.

At the end of a word. Joyous.

Before or after an f. Offset and ſatisfaction.

A question that often comes up in working with early materials is "why is everything fpelled fo ftrangely?"

It turns out that prior to approximately 1800, there were two different ways to write or print a lowercase letter S. They are known as long S and short S and there was a set of conventions about when to use each one. For readers of the time, they represented exactly the same letter, just as capital and lowercase letters do (the shape makes some sense if you think about taking a modern S and stretching it from the top and bottom). They wouldn't have had any trouble distinguishing a long S from an F, but it can definitely cause some confusion to the modern eye.

In print, it fell out of use in the last 18th/early 19th century. It lasted longer in handwriting from those who were taught long S (looking at you Ben)