Long-s

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I disagree about Austen; I think her work is better without "distant veiws," characters who "recieve guests," or her use of "tomatas" or "arraroot".

We must agree to differ, I'm afraid. Her "unique" spelling is a characteristic of her books. To my mind, they just wouldn't be the same without it.

[Doug Huffman]

If one is not literate in the language as written then one is not an editor/proofreader.

Austin may be an author of classics. That remains to be seen of all living editor/proofreaders. The comment using "old English[sic]" was sufficiently telling.

[HarryT]

We clearly just have a difference in terminology here. When the earlier poster used the expression "old English" he didn't mean the language called "Old English", but rather, "old-fashioned modern English".

For the earlier poster's benefit, the English language is conventionally divided into three broad time periods:

Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) was spoken in England and Southern Scotland from about 500 AD to somewhere after the Norman invasion - the mid 12th century is often quoted as the cut-off point. It's a highly-inflected Germanic language, and is virtually incomprehensible to a modern English speaker. This is Old English, from a poem called "The Death of Alfred":

Her com ælfred, se unsceððiga æþeling, æþelrædes
sunu cinges, hider inn and wolde to his meder, þe on Win-
cestre sæt, ac hit him ne geþafode Godwine eorl, ne ec oþre
men þe mycel mihton wealdan, forðan hit hleoðrode þa
swiðe toward Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære.

The letter "þ" is called a "thorn", and has sound of "th" as in the word "this".

Middle English refers to a great variety of dialects spoken throughout England between the 11th century and about 1470, when the language was standardised during the reign of King Henry V, due to his desire that the government should have a clear and unambiguous form for use in official documents. Chaucer is probably the best-known example one finds today of Middle English:

Whan that Aueryłł wt his shoures soote,
The droghte of Marcħ, hath perced to the roote;
And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek wt his sweete breeth,
Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth;
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne,
Hath in the Ram, his half cours yronne;
And smale foweles, maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open iye;
So priketh hem nature, in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrymages;
...

Between about 1470 and 1550 came what's called the "Great Vowel Shift", a radical change in the sound of English vowels whose cause is still a bit of a mystery to linguists. From about 1550 onwards, English has been called Modern English, since its grammar and pronunciation have stayed pretty much the same. ie Shakespeare wrote in modern English!

[ghostyjack]

Personally for me if I've got a book which uses older styles of the language, I'd create one version in it's original form as that was what the author intended. I'd then consider creating a second version with an all modern language version if I felt that the original was too difficult for the average reader to understand.

I don't like the idea of just converting the book to a more modern language version without keeping the original intact. If this happens automatically for all of our classics, we are the losers.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

Personally for me if I've got a book which uses older styles of the language, I'd create one version in it's original form as that was what the author intended. I'd then consider creating a second version with an all modern language version if I felt that the original was too difficult for the average reader to understand.

I don't like the idea of just converting the book to a more modern language version without keeping the original intact. If this happens automatically for all of our classics, we are the losers.

I concur. For example, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Create two versions: (1) Original (2) Modern (including PC changes if essential for use in schools). I haven't voted, as the options are mutually exclusive.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by deferredreward

If you're editing/proof-reading an older English work, do you leave the ſ in, or change them to our modern s? Which do you prefer to read?

I wouldn't know what to do with a ſ, so I voted s. Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker?

In old French books there is a character that may be the same, but in printed books it looks more like an italic f. I can read that, but I think in modern editions it is replaced with s, and it's more comfortable to read.

Besides, I'm not sure all ereader fonts would display ſ correctly.

And you may notice that the OP didn't mention old English

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I wouldn't know what to do with a ſ, so I voted s. Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker?

We have that "ſ"-thing too... I find it very annoying to read because I always read it as "f" and the text will look silly...

In Dutch, there's also the U, V and W, which are often mixed up... Often a V was used instead of a W and the V is often written as an U...

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'd replace it with a modern s, but I would not (and do not) change the spellings. Eg, Jane Austen's spelling peculiarities are a part of her writing; take them away and you don't have Austen any more.

I can sort of empathise with this sentiment, but I am not completely certain it is appropriate. I can imagine an author feeling very embarrassed that their typos are being repeated in perpetuity: "Oh, won't they ever let my mistakes be forgotten?" Related to this topic is this article, highlighting that some of her later books have already been edited, so any additional errors you find may not be entirely Austen's ... I also like the quote that Austen was a writer who “broke most of the rules for writing good English.” (as that reminds me of a certain other thread on here )

[Worldwalker]

I think we have to distinguish between matters of style, errors in spelling, and the inflexible nature of metal type. We seem to be talking about all of them in here.

[boxcorner]

Clearly, the author's style and spelling errors are something different from the typeface used to produce the original book, nevertheless (assuming the character "ſ" is the one used in the first edition) if you change it, then surely by doing so you destroy part of the historical context of the original book, unless of course the editor notes the changes made, for the reader and then e-book readers would be restricted to the modern version.

Given the choice: (1) modern using "s" (2) original using "ſ" plus modern using "s", then I would opt for the latter, but realise this might not be economically viable.

Perhaps both the original and modern versions could be published as a single dual e-book, providing the best of both worlds, so-to-speak, giving the reader the choice of whether to read one, or both. The same dual e-book idea could be applied to style changes, spelling corrections, though it might not be practical for school versions, say in books where changes are made purely for reasons of political correctness.

[Jellby]

A book using "ſ" will probably have lots of other old (and even inconsistent) spelling. Unless one is willing to bite the bullet and make a fully modernized version[*], I think it's better to keep the old text as is. The main problem is that maybe the font used in the ebook reader (either the default font, or that chosen by the user) does not have the glyph, and it may be annoying for searches; these two reasons can be enough to make someone wish a version with "ſ" replaced with "s".

* Depending on the language, "fully modernized" doesn't necessarily mean the intent, or even the flavour, of the old text is altered.