U.S. Alphabet once Contained a 27th Letter by Terry Kerns "Most of us assume the English alphabet has remained unchanged for centuries. If one looks at a copy of the original Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States, however, he sees that the letter "s" as we know it was not widely used until after we became a nation. At the time of the American Revolution, there were two forms of "s"--the one we use (short form) and another which resembles an "f" (long form) but did not have as long a crossbar. As a result, one finds "expenfe, bufinefs and neceffary" in the writings of that era. The long form was created in the 1700's (1700's is a direct quote) as an alternate, space-saving device. By the ninth century, it had gained such popularity that the short form was dropped from the alphabet. The short form was reintroduced in the 12th century and by the time the Gutenberg Bible was printed in he 1400s, both forms were used. If a word ended in a single "s," the short form was used. If a word ended in double "s," a long form followed by a short form was used. If the word had a double "s" in the middle, one used either two long forms or a long form followed by a short one. The rules were violated quite often. The most common exception was the use of only the long form when a word ended in a double "s." The first book printed without use of the long form was John Bell's "Shakespeare" printed in 1785. The long form disappeared slowly, however. Part of the reason for the slow change was the cost of replacing type. Many printers did not adopt the use of the short form until they had to replace worn out fonts of type. Others fought the change on grounds of taste. Benjamin Franklin was one of the great opponents of dropping the long form. He argued that without the long form, the language looked too even, comparing it to cutting off all men's noses to make them look alike. Franklin and those who agreed with him lost. By the early 1800's, the long form of the letter "s" had disappeared from normal use. It was the only change in the alphabet in the past 200 years." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The long "s" did not disappear from census records until the late 1800's and it did not disappear from the Church of England Prayer in which my Fergufson (Fergusson) family recorded births, deaths, and marriages from 1787 until after 1860. Elreeta Crain Weathers ecw@htcomp.net http://www.htcomp.net/ecw/main.htm Elreeta's home page about Hamilton County http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/1789/ Miss Ann's Home Page http://www.rootsweb.com/~txhamilt/main.htm Hamilton County, TX GenWeb http://www.htcomp.net/rrw/main.htm Ray's homepage http://www.ionet.net/~dgordons/crystal.htm Crystal Tears