Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I don't personally think it is condescending: it's just a recognition of the fact that language changes. I suspect there are relatively few readers, for example, who would prefer to retain the "long s" that was the norm in 18th and early 19th-century spelling: "tenderneſs" rather than "tenderness", for example. Use that and the typical reaction will be "what's that funny 'f' in the middle of the word?"
Likewise, changing "shew" to "show" is simply a practical acknowledgement that the spelling of the word has changed.
|
I think we're outliers around this site, but I also think we're the ones who actually read a lot, and maybe also a lot of classics like this. Most of the population never or hardly ever read books, except for schooling and such. These type of revisions are more meant for those readers, in my opinion. Numbers-wise they far outnumber us who read a lot, but if you compare the simple total of all the books they read compared to all the books we heavier readers read I think we easily read more classics than they do, and we read them more for enjoyment than they do.
Personally, I don't even agree with the long s being changed. I'd rather read the text as it was published at the time, and if anything is too difficult then modern editors can either publish side-by-side original and updated texts, or simply include annotations for more difficult original words or spellings.