From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Sun Dec 28 2003 - 20:23:09 EST
On 28/12/2003 16:38, Doug Ewell wrote:
>John Delacour <JD at BD8 dot COM> wrote:
>
>
>
>>English practice was generally, I think, to write the long s first
>>but _printed_ double s is always two tall longs, certainly in the
>>18th century:
>>
>>
>
>I thought English practice was to write all s's long except at the end
>of a word, as opposed to the German practice of writing all s's long
>except at the end of a syllable (and composing ſ + s = ß as necessary).
>
>Compare these to the Greek distinction between σ and "word-final" ς. I
>would have assumed that current Greek usage of σ and ς is parallel to
>18th-century English usage of ſ and s, but TUS says (p. 176) that "use
>of the final sigma is a matter of spelling convention," so that
>assumption is probably overly simplistic.
>
>
>
Greek New Testaments and corresponding grammars printed in the 20th
century use the final form ς only word finally, but I have a 19th
century grammar which uses this final form at the end of prefixes ending
in sigma like pros- and eis- - but a 19th century dictionary which
doesn't do this.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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