The use of long s in modern English typesetting
Norman Graham
the face, but I don't know when to use the long s and its ligatures (ss, sh,
si, sl, and st). The sample copy in the Adobe Caslon book provides no clues
for the proper use of long s in modern English copy; the typesetter seems to
use long and short s as though they are equivalent characters. For example,
in one sentence, 'circumstance' has two spellings, one with a short st
ligature and one with a long st ligature.
I hope someone on the net will take the time to explain long s usage to me.
I promise to post a summary of the responses.
Overall, I find sample copy difficult to read. The roman long s looks too
much like an 'f' to my eyes. I suspect most readers will agree. Is it
possible to make long s part of our culture's visual vocabulary again?
Yours,
Norm
--
Norman Graham
<nor...@a.cs.okstate.edu> Standard Disclaimer Applies
{cbosgd,rutgers}!okstate!norman
Stephen Graham
I suspect that the two different settings of circumstance were intended
to show off the long-s ligature and the short-s ligature.
>I hope someone on the net will take the time to explain long s usage to me.
>I promise to post a summary of the responses.
I can't pretend to be authoratative, but... The long-s should be used when
the letter s occurs within a word, except when two or more s's appear
in a row, such as asset. In this case, the first s should be a long s,
and the second a short s. Incidentally, this is the origin of the
German eszet. Short s should always be used as the last character in
a word. As for the first character, I've seen both long and short variants
used. I would tend to use the short variant as being more distinctive.
>Overall, I find sample copy difficult to read. The roman long s looks too
>much like an 'f' to my eyes. I suspect most readers will agree. Is it
>possible to make long s part of our culture's visual vocabulary again?
It probably won't make it back, simply because it looks too similar to
an f. The only time I've used it was deliberately copying an 18th-
century look. However, I wouldn't mind seeing thorn return to common
usage.
--
Stephen Graham
gra...@cs.washington.edu
(206) 543-8115
James 'Kibo' Parry
>In article <1991Jun27....@d.cs.okstate.edu> nor...@d.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes:
>I can't pretend to be authoratative, but... The long-s should be used when
>the letter s occurs within a word, except when two or more s's appear
>in a row, such as asset. In this case, the first s should be a long s,
>and the second a short s. Incidentally, this is the origin of the
>German eszet. Short s should always be used as the last character in
>a word. As for the first character, I've seen both long and short variants
>used. I would tend to use the short variant as being more distinctive.
I would agree with this. Note that if you use the long s, you may need
extra ligatures (sh, etc.) Also, you may want the ct and st ligatures
just to fully capture the old styles...
Giampa's wonderful implementation of Lanston Caslon Oldstyle 337 has all
these (and all the Giampa promotional materials use the st and ct
ligatures all over the place, they get very distracting when they're
used but the other old characters aren't.) The Giampa fonts also offer
both long and short versions of descenders, lining and hanging
(old-style) digits, and other goodies even beyond that which you can get
in Adobe Expert Sets. (Of course, they're pricey... but worth it.)
One of my favorite periods in typographical history was the German Deco
period; my collection includes reproductions of several posters that
show the long s used in geometric sans-serif typefaces (it was even
available for Futura, originally, as were the old-style digits and other
fun things that have been discarded along the trail to DTP.) German
Deco and Bahaus styles are responsible for a great deal of influence on
my own work.
>>Overall, I find sample copy difficult to read. The roman long s looks too
>>much like an 'f' to my eyes. I suspect most readers will agree. Is it
>>possible to make long s part of our culture's visual vocabulary again?
>
>It probably won't make it back, simply because it looks too similar to
>an f. The only time I've used it was deliberately copying an 18th-
>century look. However, I wouldn't mind seeing thorn return to common
>usage.
Ben Franklin maintained that the long s made for easier reading (in his
times, the short s was taking over), because it added more ascenders
(and descenders, for italic) to the word, making the shape of the word
less monotone. He also didn't like the contemporary trend of not
putting a Capital at the front of every Noun, for the same Reason.
(Although he lost those battles, he was very good at picking fonts. He
used Caslon before it was popular in America, and he was a strong
proponent of Baskerville's type when it was very first introduced--when
most other printers thought it was an abomination. Some even maintained
it would make readers go blind. Some very amusing correspondence
between Franklin and Baskerville exists, in which Franklin recounts
taking a specimen sheet of Caslon type to local printers and asking,
"This is Baskerville's new type, what's wrong with it?" and being told
how horrible it looked.)
99% (I imagine) of people these days, when they seey a roman long s,
will pronounce it "f" (as in Benny Hill's "Fad-Eyed Fal" ftory), just as
the thorn changed to a "y" ("Ye Olde Souvenir Shoppe"). I can see
"thistle", written with the thorn and long s, being read "piftle", etc.
An interesting point related to the long s is that in the alphabets cut
for the French royal presses, the l had the same little bump that the
long s had, meaning that s, f, l matched quite interestingly. That's
something that was pretty much never done elsewhere; when you see an l
with a bump you can probably guess it was printed for the King.
--
.............................................................................
James "Kibo" Parry ki...@world.std.com Independent graphic designer
271 Dartmouth St. #3D, Boston, MA 02116 specializing in logo and
(617) 262-3922 typeface design.
S Matthews
>I can't pretend to be authoratative, but... The long-s should be used when
>the letter s occurs within a word, except when two or more s's appear
>in a row, such as asset. In this case, the first s should be a long s,
>and the second a short s. Incidentally, this is the origin of the
>German eszet.
This is not quite true; the eszet is a ligature of a long s and a z,
which you can see if you open any book set in a `German' font. In roman
fonts it has been distorted so much that it is difficult to see what
happened.
Sean
--
Sean Matthews 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, UK
Dept. of Artificial Intelligence +44 (0) 31 650 2722
University of Edinburgh se...@castle.ed.ac.uk
Jay Sekora
of old documents. I haven't (I think) seen it spelled out anywhere,
and I haven't done any sort of methodical study of the subject.
If you want to be historically accurate, here are the rules:
(1) If you ever use a long s, always use it at the beginnings of
words, and within words except possibly before another s.
(2) After another s and at the ends of words, usage varied by time,
place, and probably typesetter (but was consistent within a
text). At the ends of words, the round (short) s was normally
used, though I've seen a few documents that use the long s
throughout (i.e., lowercase round s never appears). If the
round s is ever used, it must be used at the end of a word.
(3) ss in the middle of words is done both ways (i.e., first s is
always long; second s can be long or short, but be consistent).
I think the spelling with one long s and one round s is more
common.
Of course, there's no "long" form of capital S.
Some examples, where "{" represents long s:
Most common style:
po{se{s ro{es {u{pen{ions {a{safras
Alternatively:
po{{e{s ro{es {u{pen{ions {a{{afras
Least common style:
po{{e{{ ro{e{ {u{pen{ion{ {a{{afra{
I wi{h you much Ioy and Succe{s in your printing Endeauours, and
hope that you may haue found the Authors Ob{eruatiouns and Comments
of some V{e.
--
_____________________________________________________________________
Jay Sekora | internet: j...@princeton.edu
Information Centers Consultant | bitnet: j...@pucc.bitnet
Princeton University | phone 609/258-6007
Wolf PAUL
> I recently purchased Adobe Caslon and its expert set. I'm very happy with
> the face, but I don't know when to use the long s and its ligatures (ss, sh,
> si, sl, and st). The sample copy in the Adobe Caslon book provides no clues
> for the proper use of long s in modern English copy; the typesetter seems to
> use long and short s as though they are equivalent characters. For example,
> in one sentence, 'circumstance' has two spellings, one with a short st
> ligature and one with a long st ligature.
Don't know about English usage; I suspect it is similar to German
usage which is as follows:
Long 's' at the beginning of and in the middle of words/syllables;
Round 's' at the end of words and sometimes at the end of syllables.
The ligatures are used whenever a long 's' is followed by one of the
consonants for which a ligature is provided.
There is also (in German) a ligature of long 's' and 'z'; this is the
same as the so-called "sharp" 's', which to the untrained (non-German)
eye looks like an upper-case 'B' or a lower-case Greek 'beta'. In
fact, many printers provide a beta instead of the "sharp" 's' -- if
that is the case with your printer, please use "ss" instead, likewise
if your printer does not provide this character at all.
Even though the origin of this character is an 'sz' ligature, current
convention in the German-speaking countries discourages the use of
the "sz" combination in its place, and recommends "ss" instead, if the
"real thing" is not available.
Also note that "sharp" 's' is strictly a lower case letter -- in
all-caps or small-caps text, always use "ss".
The "sz" ligature is only used for the "sharp s" sound, never in cases
where an 's' and a 'z' happen to meet as parts of two different
syllables -- i.e. "ausziehen" (to undress) is not written with the
'sz' ligature.
--
W.N.Paul
IIASA, w...@iiasa.iiasa.ac.at, +43-2236-71521-465 (till Jul 26, 1991)
ALCATEL/ELIN, cc_...@rcvie.at (as of Jul 29, 1991)
Home Phone: +43-2236-618514 (till Jun 30, 1991), +43-1-224-6913 (as of Jul 1)
John E. Koontz X5180
As to the origin of ess-zet, the name gives it away: it's ess plus zeta.
I think that this explains why sz is pronounced ess in Hungarian usage, too,
but I may be getting carried away!