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Originally Posted by rcentros
don't understand the rules for long and short s'es.
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The most common rule was that the long ſ was used at the beginning or middle of words, while the short s was used at the end of the word, except in a double s the second was always short-form (“aſsets”).
This goes back to the Greek sigma, which had different forms at the end of the word vs. in the middle/front (ς and σ).
Your excerpt mostly obeys that, except for some reason in one instance of the word “sacred”. Sometimes (depending on the printer and era), a short s would be used before an f or in some other cases where the long ſ was deemed unaesthetic. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe they ran out of long ſ'es and had to sub in a short one, maybe it was an idiosyncrasy of the printer or a transitional form.
Quote:
Actually there's a lot of this I don't understand (like when to use a "v" for a "u" and vice versa and when not to).
EDIT: One thing I have figured out, however, is why a "w" is called a "double u" and not a double "v." In this Preface w's were "V V" (but closer together).
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U and V were one letter, hence W being named as it is.
When they began to differentiate, originally “u” was used in the middle/end of a word, and “v” at the beginning. Your excerpt mostly follows this rule, except for one instance of the word “have”.
The late 1300s is when the two began to differentiate, a process that took centuries, so the fact that Douay-Rheims is a little transitional and occasionally fuzzes the rules isn't surprising.
On top of all that, spelling and typesetting were pretty loose with the rules in general until fairly recently.