Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:39:02.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Long-s in Late Modern English manuscripts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2012

LYDA FENS-DE ZEEUW  and
ROBIN STRAAIJER
LYDA FENS-DE ZEEUW
Affiliation:
Lexical Analysis Centre, Robarts Library, University of Toronto, 130 St George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A5, [email protected]
ROBIN STRAAIJER
Affiliation:
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is a generally accepted fact that the use of long-s, or <ſ>, was discontinued in English printing at the close of the eighteenth century and that by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century this allograph had all but disappeared. This demise of <ſ> in printing has been fairly well documented, but there is virtually no literature on what happened to it in handwritten documents. The disappearance of <ſ> and <ſs> (as in ʃeems and buʃineʃs) in favour of <s> and <ss> is generally ascribed to the printers’ wishes to simplify their type-settings. But at what point and to what extent did this simplifying process influence private writing of the period? In this article we have documented the rules, as observed by printers, for the use of long-s in the Late Modern English period, and we illustrate how printing practice during this period compared to the usage of this particular grapheme in letters written by two well-known codifiers of the English language, the grammarians Joseph Priestley and Lindley Murray.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 16 , Issue 2: Selected papers from the Fourth International Conference on Late Modern English , July 2012 , pp. 319 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Sources

Letter collections

Conway, Henry Seymour. Folder January–March 1756, folder 1759, folder 1760–1767, folder 1789–1795. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas. The Thomas Jefferson Papers. Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjdigit.html, accessed 1 April 2010.Google Scholar
Mann, Horatio. BL Egerton 2641; BL 230109 (microfilmed copies). The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.Google Scholar
Corpus of Lindley Murray Letters (CLML). Lyda Fens-de Zeeuw. Research Project Group The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English. Leiden University, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Corpus of Nineteenth-Century Informal American Family Letters (working title; in prep.). Bas van Elburg, Leiden University, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). Gale Group. http://galenet.galegroup.com/ecco.Google Scholar
Google Books. Google. http://books.google.com.Google Scholar
Joseph Priestley Letter Corpus (JPLC). Robin Straaijer. Research Project Group The Codifiers and the English Language: Tracing the Norms of Standard English. Leiden University, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). Oxford University Press. www.odnb.com.Google Scholar

References

Anonymous. 1756. The compleat letter-writer . . . London: S. Crowder & H. Woodgate.Google Scholar
Bailey, Nathan. 1727. The universal etymological English dictionary, 2nd edn.London: T. Cox.Google Scholar
Bailey, Nathan. 1756. The new universal etymological English dictionary, 4th edn.London: T. Waller.Google Scholar
Baker, Frank (ed.). 1980. The works of John Wesley, vol. 25: Letters 1721–1739. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bell, John. 1788. Bell's edition of Shakspere. London: John Bell.Google Scholar
Browne, Thomas & Entick, John. 1831. Spelling dictionary of the English language. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green.Google Scholar
Crakelt, William & Entick, John. 1800. Entick's new spelling dictionary. London: J. Crowder.Google Scholar
Dury, Richard. 2008. Handwriting and the linguistic study of letters. In Dossena, Marina & van Ostade, Ingrid Tieken-Boon (eds.), Studies in Late Modern English correspondence, 113–35. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Dyche, Thomas. 1707. A guide to the English tongue, 1st edn.London: Samuel Butler.Google Scholar
Dyche, Thomas. 1710. A guide to the English tongue, 2nd edn.London: Samuel Butler.Google Scholar
Dyche, Thomas. 1723. A dictionary of all the words commonly us'd in the English tongue. London: Samuel Butler.Google Scholar
Dyche, Thomas. 1725. The spelling dictionary, 2nd edn.London: Thomas Norris & Richard Ware.Google Scholar
Dyche, Thomas. 1785. A guide to the English tongue. London: J. James.Google Scholar
Elburg, Bas van. In prep. Certain linguistic features in nineteenth-century informal American family letters (working title). PhD dissertation, Leiden University, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Emsley, Bert. 1940. Progress in pronouncing dictionaries. American Speech 15, 55–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Entick, John. 1766. The new spelling dictionary. London: Edward & Charles Dilly.Google Scholar
Fens-de Zeeuw, Lyda. 2011. Lindley Murray (1745–1826), Quaker and grammarian. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Görlach, Manfred. 2001. Eighteenth-century English. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Henstra, Froukje. In prep. The language of Horace Walpole and his correspondents: Eighteenth-century linguistic norms and the functionality of social network analysis in a historical context. PhD dissertation, Leiden University, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. 1755. Dictionary of the English language, vol. 1. London: W. Strahan.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen. 1798. Sheridan improved. A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language, 3rd edn.London: Vernor & Hood et al.Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja & Romaine, Suzanne. 2006. Adjective comparison in nineteenth-century English. In Kytö, Merja, Rydén, Mats & Smitterberg, Erik (eds.), Nineteenth-century English: Stability and change, 194–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mosley, James. 1995. S&ſ: The origin and use of the ‘Long S’. In Tuohy, Steven (ed.), James Mosley . . . A checklist of the published writings 1958–95. Cambridge: The Rampant Lions Press.Google Scholar
Mosley, James. 2008. Long s. Typefounder: Documents for the history of type and letterforms. http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2008/01/long-s.html, accessed 8 October 2009.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1795. English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. . . York: Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1796. English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. . ., 2nd edn improved. York: Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1797. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . . York: Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1797. English exercises, adapted to the grammar. . . York: Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1797. English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners . . ., 3rd edn improved. York: Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1798. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . ., 2nd edn, corrected and enlarged. London: Darton & Harvey.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1799. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . ., 3rd edn.London: Darton & Harvey.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1799. English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. . ., 5th edn.York: Longman & Reese, Darton & Harvey, and Wilson, Spence & Mawman.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1800. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . ., 4th edn.London: Darton & Harvey.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1802. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . ., 6th edn.London: Darton & Harvey.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1804. An abridgment of L. Murray's English grammar. . ., 4th Albany edn.Albany, NY: Whiting, Backus & Whiting.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1805. English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. . ., 1st Connecticut edn.Hartford, CT: Lincoln & Gleason.Google Scholar
Murray, Lindley. 1806. English Grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. . ., 15th edn improved. York: Wilson & Spence.Google Scholar
Nash, Paul W. 2001. The abandoning of the long s in Britain in 1800. Journal of the Printing Historical Society (New Series) 3, 3–19.Google Scholar
Priestley, Joseph. 1761. The rudiments of English grammar, adapted to the use of schools . . . London: R. Griffiths.Google Scholar
Priestley, Joseph. 1768. The rudiments of English grammar, adapted to the use of schools . . ., 2nd edn.London: T. Becket & P. A. De Hondt; J. Johnson.Google Scholar
Salmon, Vivian. 1999. Orthography and punctuation. In Lass, Roger (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 3: 1476–1776, 13–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scragg, Donald George. 1974. A history of English spelling. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press/Barnes & Noble Books.Google Scholar
Smith, John. 1755. The printer's grammar. London: W. Owen & M. Cooper.Google Scholar
Straaijer, Robin. 2011. Joseph Priestley, grammarian: Late Modern English normativism and usage in a sociohistorical context. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2002. Robert Lowth and the strong verb system. Language Sciences, 24, 459–69.Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2005. Eighteenth-century English letters: In search of the vernacular. Linguistica e Filologia 21, 113–46. Bergamo: Università Degli Studio di Bergamo.Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2009. An introduction to Late Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Upward, Christopher & Davidson, George W.. 2011. The history of English spelling. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, John. 1791. A critical pronouncing dictionary . . . London: sold by G. G. J. & J. Robinson; and T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Walker, John. 1809. A critical pronouncing dictionary . . . London: J. Johnson; T. Cadell; and W. Davies.Google Scholar
Warwick, Eden. 1855. Long S. Notes & Queries, 20 January, s1-XI, 49.Google Scholar
Watts, Isaac. 1722. The art of reading and writing English, 2nd edn.London: John Clark, Em. Matthews & Richard Ford.Google Scholar
West, Andrew. 2006. The long and the short of the letter S. Babelstone. http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/07/long-and-short-of-letter-s.html, accessed 8 October 2009.Google Scholar
West, Andrew. 2008. The rules for long S. Babelstone. http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/06/rules-for-long-s.html, accessed 8 October 2009.Google Scholar
Williams, William P. 1979. Some notes on ‘ſ’ and ‘s’. Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 3, 97–101.Google Scholar