Aphorisms on Early Printed Books

u and v can represent either a vowel or a consonant, so vnto = “unto”, and haue = “have”. v is usually at the beginning of words and u elsewhere.

Spelling was not standardized before the popularization of dictionaries in the eighteenth century, but a word can usually be sounded out. Say the word aloud, and you will often recognize it. For example, yuel = “evil”.

y and i represent the same vowel sounds. Y is often used where modern English uses i, so lyue = live.

The macron (a horizontal stroke printed over a letter, as above the e in thē) indicates that the following letter or syllable (usually an m or n) has been omitted, so thē = them or then. A curled macron, i.e. the tilde (~), represents an omitted a. By these means, scribes and early printers often abbreviated a word so that their columns would be neatly justified.

The þ (thorn) later became similar to a Y in handwriting (though not phonetically) and in this form it continued to be used by printers as an abbreviation for th in early printed books. When it was used in this way it was normally printed with a superscript e or t as an abbreviation, so ye = the and yt = that.

The silent e occurs much more often in early English spelling than it does in modern English. It was often used simply to expand the length of a word in order to justify a column.

Sometimes the w appears simply as two us, that is two vs, so well = vvell.

The ampersand (&) is often used for and in early books.

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, it was common to italicize proper names.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when English writers were reading a lot of German, it was popular to capitalize nouns.

It was not common to use ‘s to indicate possession until the eighteenth century.

Up until about 1790, the long s (ſ or ʃ) was used for s at the beginning and in the middle of words. In Roman type the long s looks like an f with the cross-stroke on the left only, and in italic type it looks like a stretched round s.

Note on EEBO texts: A tilda ( ~ ) indicates an unreadable letter. It is usually an “n” but sometimes an “m”. Bracketed ellipses mean a portion of the text is unreadable.