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Old 03-09-2018, 05:03 AM   #20
sjfan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcentros View Post
don't understand the rules for long and short s'es.
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).
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.

Last edited by sjfan; 03-09-2018 at 05:14 AM.
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