Firstly - yes, I know it’s been months since I last posted. The reason is that I have other work to do. No sooner have I got one bit of the dragon thing out than work pops up and off I go to do it. So it’s often months before I get a moment to remember that I really should be doing something re the Dragon Thing.
But we are now in one such moment, so let’s go!
This one is less about the dragon than it is answering a question lots of (ok, two) folk had about the last post: Why the F is F S in old texts?
If you tried to read out the old story about the dragon as a modern person you’d be tripping over your lips with all the effs. Your screen would be frayed with faliva before you’d even fcrolled.
So what was going on?
Firstly - S was not written as F. The letter just looks like an f to modern eyes. As you can see from this Paradise Lost frontispiece, the Long S lacks the crossbar of the modern f.
(I’m going to be using Paradife Loft as an example a lot in this post. For work reasons, I have FOURTEEN copies of the damn book, so they may as well pay their way)
Secondly, S was not pronounced as F. Folk were not going round spluttering ‘Vifit my houfe on Funday for fome faufages!’ They were pronouncing the ‘s’ in much the same way that you or I do.
What they were doing was making a distinction between the ‘long’ and the ‘short’ S. That’s why you will often see a recognisable ‘S’ scattered among the sibilant ‘F’s of ancient texts. The writer or typesetter is referencing specific sounds.
As you can see from the publishing info of Paradife Loft, there’s a medley of long and short S present. Paradife Loft is sold by Fpiderman near Aldgate, by Robert Boulter at the TurkS head in BiFhopFgate-Ftreet. MatthiaS Walker sells it under St DunFtons Church in Fleet-Ftreet.
This isn’t random. Each use of long and short f here references a certain spoken sound.
What’s the distinction? Well, because this is the English language, the rules are inconsistent and vary massively according to your dialect. Because we’re dealing with a Devonian dragon, I shall explain the Devonian rules for effing your esses.
A modern double S is usually a ‘long’ S in Devonian manuscripts. For example, ‘Dresses’ was once ‘Drefes’ and ‘Professional’ was once ‘Profefional’.
A word-ending S is always a ‘short’ s. For example, ‘Success’ was once ‘Succefs’.
A capital S is usually a ‘short’ s.
Generally - and this is hard to explain when I can’t make the sounds for you - if the S sound is curt and clipped (e.g. ‘Speech’, ‘Spread’), it’s a ‘short’ S. If it’s softer and has more sibilance (e.g. ‘Hiss’, ‘Soft’), it’s a ‘short’ S. Often the ‘long’ S precedes a vowel rather than a consonant - but not universally.
Makes sense? No? Well if you expect things to make sense you’re reading about the wrong language my friend. Let’s move on.
Why did the Long S difappear?
It didn’t. We still use that found in speech (fee what I did there?). It just disappeared from texts.
Why? Because capitalism, basically.
Imagine that you’re an eighteenth-century printer. It’s the height of Enclosure, and the Industrial Revolution is just revving up. All around you see people making a ton of money by cutting costs and optimising production.
Often ‘cutting costs’ means disenfranchising and exploiting the vulnerable - but that’s a story for another post (many of them, in fact - dragons and exploitation of the vulnerable are intrinsically linked in the history of the rural UK. And not because they ate peasants, either. Stay tuned to find out more!)
In those days, printing involved ‘moveable type’. It was a wonderful invention that brought words to the masses - but it did mean that each letter had to be individually produced.
If you’re a typesetter, it’s a lot more efficient to use your suite of Ss in more situations than it is to produce a whole extra letter suite. The long and the short S sound pretty similar, right? So why not just use the same letter for them both?
And that’s how Paradife Loft became Paradise Lost.
Can Heather link this to the Exe Valley Dragon?
I absolutely can!
You see, the long S is far from the only letter that the English language has lost. Just off the top of my head, there are seven letters we still use in speech but have not seen in texts since the fourteenth century.
Why?
The Normans.
The Normans put a huge, concerted, centuries-long effort into wiping out non-Norman languages, enfranchisement, and culture in the UK and beyond (take a peek at the House of Commons, and you might think they still are...🙊)
Dragons, bizarrely, played a major part in that strategy.
There’s a lot to explain about this, but I’ll start making an attempt next time. Stay tuned!