There’s been no shortage of news developments here lately, but readers seem to have had other things on their minds:
- Why were f’s used for s’s in setting the type for the Declaration of Independence?
- Why did `Access’ magazine vanish from the Sunday `Star-Telegram?
Many versions of those questions have poured in, so here are the answers in one fell swoop.
On July 4, we reproduced the Declaration of Independence on the Opinions page. It’s a beautiful document to behold. Colonial typography exudes elegance and dignity. As we begin to read the document, those of us who can spell as well as read immediately encounter what appears to be a staggering example of typographical error in the first sentence:
“When in the Courfe of human Events, it becomes neceffary …”
More than a few of us have been reading that for years and wondering what gives. You may have even affected a lisp of sorts when reading passages aloud.
For whatever reason, a great number of you got fed up this year with not knowing why you were reading exotic spellings such as “Courfe,” “neceffary” and other words such as “eftablifhed,” “fufferable,” “refufed,” “mercilefs” and the like, and you called and wanted to know why these words were spelled with f’s for s’s.
Finding the answer was not that easy. There aren’t that many people who can explain the odd spelling in the Declaration of Independence. But Chad Jones can.
Jones is on the Colonial Print Shop staff at Colonial Williamsburg, Va. He was prepared for our question. The answer could be complicated, he said, because there were various rules that governed “s” usage back then, but there’s a short explanation of rules pertaining to “s” stuff.
Jones said the f’s actually are “long s’s,” which had been in use long before the dawn of printing in the 1400s and are pronounced like “s” when read.
The f’s really aren’t f’s, he said.
“If you look closely, you’ll see that the bar on the stem of the letter starts on the left of the stem and stops on the stem rather than crossing the stem as with an f.
“There were pretty strict rules about when to use long s’s, but basically they were to be used inside a word. If a word ended in s, an s like the s’s that we know was used, which is why the nickname for an s is `final s.’ ”
Use of the long s was peaking when the Declaration of Independence was printed, Chad said. By the mid-1800s, the long s was rarely used and generally was abandoned by 1900 in favor of plain old s. Chad added that there’s an italic version of the long s that looks like a long, stretched-out s.
Well, buft my britches. Feems fo fimple.
Now back to 2001 and `Access’ magazine, which billed itself as “America’s guide to the Internet.”
As they say on their Web site (www.accessmagazine.com), “`Access’ magazine has suspended publication due to the continuing uncertainty in the economy.”
The last issue was for June 10. The `Star-Telegram carried a story that day about `Access” demise. Business Writer Mitchell Schnurman talked with co-founder Michael Veitch who explained that `Access’ was starved of revenue when technology companies slashed their advertising budgets to cope with tough times.
Veitch is trying to raise money to resurrect `Access’, which already had used $50 million in start-up capital. Meanwhile, we lament the passing of a newsy, well-executed magazine.
But there’s good news. The `Star-Telegram will soon launch `Internet Life’, which will address personal technology topics. Watch for it, and please tell us what you think.
