When did we stop using an F for the letter S in the English language?

Question

I have an old book with MUST for example written as MUFT

This is not a typo it is the same for all the other words in the book. It was normal in old days. But when did it change?

Answer 1

The english language has never used an f for the letter s. What you are seeing is a long s symbol. There are close to three different "s" sounds in English, pretty close to German.

There is a short s, like say. It's quick and not a lot of hiss.
There's a long s, like hiss or kiss, with lots of snake sound aliteration for sound.
There is an odd s sound like z or c in zebra or nice.

The f looking letter you are seeing is the symbol for the long s sound, like hiss or kiss.

It is a remnant of Middle English and was also the same symbol and sound used in German til 1945. In colonial America many men and women still wrote with this symbol in calligraphied documents. I believe somewhere in the 1800's the symbol was dropped from common used all together and replaced with a double s, ss, for ease and speed.

Answer 2

The long 's' is subject to confusion with the minuscule 'f', sometimes even having an 'f'-like nub at its middle, but on the left side only, in various kinds of Roman typeface and in blackletter. There was no nub in its italic typeform, which gave the stroke a descender curling to the left—not possible with the other typeforms mentioned without kerning.

The nub acquired its form in the blackletter style of writing. What looks like one stroke was actually a wedge pointing downward, whose widest part was at that height (x-height), and capped by a second stroke forming an ascender curling to the right. Those styles of writing and their derivatives in type design had a cross-bar at height of the nub for letters 'f' and 't', as well as 'k'. In Roman type, these disappeared except for the one on the medial 's'.

The long 's' was used in ligatures in various languages. Three examples were for 'si', 'ss', and 'st', besides the German 'double s' 'ß'.

Long 's' fell out of use in Roman and italic typography well before the end of the 19th century; in English the change occurred in the decade before and after 1800. In most countries ligatures vanished as well. Typographers have presently revived ligatures in seriffed and sans-serif text fonts, as well as many kinds of display types. For example, some text fonts have an 'st' ligature made up of a terminal 's' with a small bulbous curl connecting the two letters at the top, unlike ligatures using a long 's', which joins directly to the 't' by an extension of the long s ascender.

Long 's' survives in German blackletter typefaces. The present-day German 'double s' 'ß' (ess-zett) is an atrophied ligature form representing either 'ſz' or 'ſs' (see ß for more). Greek also features a normal sigma 'σ' and a special terminal form 'ς', which may have supported the idea of specialized 's' forms. In Renaissance Europe a significant fraction of the literate class were familiar with Greek.

Answer 3

re:"When did we stop using an F for the letter S in the English language?"

When we needed to say the words that started with F and S and that rhyme with duck in the same sentence that required signifying difference between the two words.

re:"I have an old book with MUST for example written as MUFT"

Canterbury Tales?:):):)

Answer 4

It isn't an "f". It is a very long, dangling "s". It was a question of orthography. I think it was phased out about 200 years ago.

These long "s"s gave rise to confusion in French, as when an "l" and an "s" appeared together at the end of the word they would be written across one another and the effect would be that of a large "x". That is why in French so many words have an "x" in the plural!

Answer 5

I agree. this is extremely stressful. an excellent type of persons are stuck on textual content type messeging because it really is quick, efficient and a good type of sweet 16 imagine it really is "cool"! it type of feels to me that instructors aren't to any extent further grading punctuation, grammar and spelling those days. the instructors are having to take care of better classes with further and extra "particular desires" scholars. scholars in those classes can extremely come out reading a lot less writing perfect We even ought to appreciate that an excellent type of persons come from different international places and are studying English as a 2d language and performance hassle with English grammar, punctuation and spelling. The English language isn't common to study as there are so few absolute regulations, with regulations which now and again replace and many regulations to operate to the acception. Rote memorization of spelling and grammar aren't to any extent further a remember life and lack of life with pcs. i imagine a similar concern is occuring in different languages as well. Take jap operating example, the position little ones are forgetting their language attributable to comic books, intense tech gadgets and extra and extra overseas words of their language. they couldn't often study a e book written 2 a lengthy time period in the past because the language has replaced a lot. i have self belief a similar is taking place with this technology.

Answer 6

Actually, I think it was round 1500 or so. A legitimate question, BTW. I think middle English it was still an F.
--That Cheeky Lad

Answer 7

I think you mean the "long S". About 1800 according to the Wikipedia.

Answer 8

Interesting, sounds like what someone else wrote earlier - "a typo". They must not have proofed their work prior to it going into print.

Answer 9

this happened when dentistry took a hold and improved peoples speech because of good teeth .. in the olden days people were ashamed of their teeth and so spoke looking towards to floor without opening their mouths properly .. thus when people were writing they wrote as they spoke ... fo for adef f waf put in the place of s ... now we have good teeth we want people to see them so we say s's

well thats what i think anyway LOL

Answer 10

Fometime in the Feventeenth century I think. But I really dont give a suck...