How did people in the early United States determine whether to use an s or an f in words?

Question

I saw a picture in a history book of an old newspaper and they spelled Pennsylvania "Pennfylvania" and just "juft", said "faid", etc. but they still use words like Saturday and Books and State, and they even spell congress "congrefs"! I don't understand it at all, when did they use "s" and when did they use "f"?

Answer 1

You are understandably confused.

What looked like an "f" to you is actually an old way of writing the letter "s" - compare it with words which have an actual f and you will see it is slightly different. The "tall s" is very ancient and can be found in 12th century handwritten English manuscripts alongside the ordinary form.

By the time the document you saw was written, tall s was being used at the start and middle of words, ordinary s at the end - but this was not always the rule.

Answer 2

the 'f' you saw was a remnant of old English (actually from old German). You can still find a variant of it in German as an archaic (but still used) character representing the double s (as in Massachusetts - you could perhaps write it as something that looks like 'Mafachusetts'). One problem with writing from more than a century or so ago is that the rules were somewhat flexible - the farther back you go, the more you see that there were a variety of ways of spelling the same words. It seems to have been more a matter of personal taste than anything else. Dictionaries helped standardise spelling.

Answer 3

What you are looking at is what is called a "long S". A long S was used in the middle of a word, not the beginning letter or end letter.
It is not an F.

Answer 4

They flipped a coin. Heads was "s" and tails was "f"