Leaves This came across one of my mail lists and I thought it may be helpful. Kathy Harrison harris@livingonline.com When this you see, remember me --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How To Read A 200-Year-Old Document and Other FAQs In reading newspapers, books and magazines from the 18th Century you will invariably notice that an "f" is apparently used where there should be an "s." For instance, the word "vessel" is printed as "veffel," the word "same" appears as "fame" and "castle" becomes "caftle." Because of the confusion encountered by readers new to 18th Century documents, we have asked three individuals knowledgeable in the history of typography to render their views on the subject. Their explanations follow: "The Long S is a legitimate form of "S." See the American Heritage Dictionary "S" entries. The Long S is similar to a lowercase f but the horizontal stroke does not go through the top of the letter. The long s still survives in German (or at least it was available when I studied German). German has an uppercase S, a lowercase long f and a lowercase s. "The Rules Are: "Regular uppercase S; "Terminal lowercase s and medial s under certain conditions; initial long f and medial long f." "Examples: "In the 1791 Bradford edition of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Introduction reads: "Perhaps the fentiments contained in the following pages are not yet fufficiently fathionable to procure them general favor...." "You will note that both fentiments and pages end with a normal lowercase "s" and both fentiments & fufficiently have an initial lowercase long f." - Richard Irby The symbol "s" was not an "f" although it looked like one. The long s letter can better be described as an "f" without the crossline traveling through the vertical line. The crossline only extends to the right of the vertical line. Also, the long s was never used at the end of a word or to denote the possessive or to pluralize. Since handwriting was considered an art form, the placement of the long s depended on what the"clark" felt would be visually pleasing to his audience. In a hand-written document, the top of the long s looked like the lower case fS." - Lawrence Davis