May 03, 2004

• This is wonderful. Cheers, Fes
• Moreover, here is a list of all the journals so digitised: Annual Register, Blackwood Edinburgh Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, Notes and Queries, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and The Builder. Is good!
• Monkey's Filter: or, Inter-Net Surfer's DAILY INTELLIGENCER. Number II for MAY. C O N T A I N I N G, I. A VIEW of the Weekly Effays and Controverfies, viz. Of K.s George II and Blair; Minifters; Treaties; Liberty of the Prefs; Riot act; Armies; Traytors; Patriots; Reafon; Criticifm; Verfifying; Ridicule; Humours; Love; Proftitutes; Mufic; Inter-Net Pawn-Brokers; Surgery; Law. II. POETRY, viz. The Ode for the Turkmen Bafhi, by Bees Wacky, Efq.; Remarks upon it; Imitations of it, by way of Burlefque; Verfes on the fame Subject; ingenious Epitaphs and Epigrams. III. Domeftick Occurrences, viz. Births, Deaths, Marriages, Preferments, Cafualties, Burials and Chriftenings in the Commonwealthe. IV. Melancholy Effects of Credulity in Afhecrofte. V. Prices of Goods and Stocks, and a Lift of Bankrupts. VI. A correct Lift of the Net Sheriffs for the current Year. VII. Remarkable Advertifements. VIII. Foreign Affairs, with an Introduction to this Year's Hiftory. IX. Web Sites and Pamphlets publifh'd. X. Obfervations in Gardening by Blue Horfe, and the Fairs in June. XI. A Search Function. By T R A C I C L E of Chriftchurche, NZ.
• When found, make a note of. Excellent post, Fes, and I'm swiping it for LH immediately. goetter: The Community of Monkeys turns a Grateful and Cognizant Eye upon you.
• ) fuch lovely type. goetter: I totally want that. Enlightenmentfilter!
• I think goetter wins the best comment of the month award.
• The Third of April, at thirteen minutes before eight: Mr. Finnegan pays refpects to Misters. Fes and Goetter for fuperlative and informative correfpondance.
• goetter, marry me and have my babies.
• This Commentator has ſince found, that the medial s may be found in the ſyſtem Fonts of many divers Computing Soft-Ware Mak'rs, including Microſoft. Your obedient ſervant.
• boſſ!
• When we conſider, how many fruitleſs Poſts there be in the World, how much Inſufficiency and Inanition of the Imaginative Faculties waſted upon the eſurient Audience, we can but commend in the higheſt Degree ſuch laviſh Generoſity as is diſplayed by Maſter Goetter in theſe Presents. I moſt humbly beſeech the noble Monkeybaſhi to grant him a Title befitting his Deſerts. Your moſt humble & obedient, &c, &c
• Where we hereby reflect on the Conduct of a ſertain great Man, neither fear'd nor deſpis'd, affecting all the qualities and requiſites of the moſt conſummate ſtateſman, we are thuſly indebted to our Humble ſervant Maſter Goetter, and beſtow 'pon him the honourable Title of Gentleman Goetter, ſteward of the Ancient and True language of Kings, Nobles and ſimians.
• Medial S's! You made me laugh out loud, especially lh and tracicle for their beautiful replication of the ponderous printing of the time : ) I should know - I've been reading it all day (1640s and 1650s pamphlets - not much change in 80 years). I started noticing as an undergraduate that the Gentleman's Magasine was continually quoted in history books on the period. But as I was working on my final big research essay, I realised why. It's indexed - centuries worth of indexing. Not that detailed - just the subjects of the articles, and people mentioned, but that is just so invaluable. With most other eighteenth century periodicals you just have to scan the whole thing to find the articles you are looking for. But you can open GM and find a pithy quote on just about anything they ever wrote on. It's beautiful. There is a lot of other material from that period online, but unfortunately it's almost universally on commercial sites which the major research libraries pay major mulla to access. I've heard people talking about how soon there will be a "digital divide" among historians and other scholars in North America, between those with such easy access and those without.
• Oh - I should ask, now that I has access to language people - is there a system to the use of medial s's? My intuition suggests medially (what with the name and all) - but I was never really sure. Where there rules about where you were suposed to use one s versus the other?
• I didn't even know they're called "medial esses", so I'm happy!
• May the Great Banana smile on Fes! A wonderful find!
• It's not hard to make the Great Banana smile. You see, you just need to grab the tip and push up like...umm...never mind.
• And I thought Singapore was terribly up tight. Silly me.
• Ha! Thou medial ess, begone, vamoose, arroint ye, scram! Such a rich and plummy [second Elizabeth-an] imprecation.
• Oh, we are. We are. *sigh* ... what? Oh. Ahem... Good show, Fes! *APPLAUSE*
• MY DEAR JB, I have had many melancholy reflections on your moſt ſincere Queſtion, whether indeed man has a System for the ſhape of the Letter S, by which the Writer might ſelect the correct Form for any Writing. If it ſhould pleaſe God, I reſolve to aſſemble my Sentiments relating to theſe Forms, though the advices which I ſhall give you will be very imperfect, as there are many nameleſs Delicacies of Writing, of which I am but the pooreſt Judge. /great god, enough already Medial s is a lowercase form used when another letter immediately follows the s. At the beginning or middle of a word, the letter would take its medial form, a long looping letter flowing cursively into the following letter. At the end of the word, or when followed by an apostrophe (e.g. contractions or possessives), the letter would take its terminal form, that being the short s familiar today. Note that the upper case S makes no such differentiation in form.
• Checking against the document I'm playing with - yup, you're right. Interesingly, many of the medial s's do look like f's in print (unlike handwriting) - some even with the suggestion of a bit of a crossbar. I wonder if the printer lost some letters and was doing some quick and dirty conversions.
• some quick and dirty conversions. Ah, so what it really meant to say was "suck you, affhole"?
• That still sounds dirty.
• IIRC, Affe is German for ape.
• Guessing a double ess would be remedial?