2650: Long S Mar 20, 2022

There is something called the long s ⟨ſ⟩, which people may be familiar with from printed documents before the 19th century especially. This is often confused with an ⟨f⟩ on first glance, but the two are unrelated. The long s, distinguished from the 'round s', dates back to Roman times at the time the upper & lower case letters were being distinguished, but before there were clear rules about them. The Greek sigma also is unique in the Greek alphabet for having three forms, and represents broadly the same sound, but that's not related. This was later formalized in German printing especially. After the start of the 18th century, it became phased out as it was harder for typists, required an extra letter in print types, and was not seen as providing enough benefit to account for the extra work. There will be more on the form & history of the long s in coming posts.