Alice196498 [she/her]

It’s not a bit. It’s how I’ve been writing for moſt of my life. I’m glad you like it, and I hope you like the blog !

Language is always evolving, and that’s great. It’s intereſting when things go in and out of favour, much like faſhion. the really great thing is where it can help with acceſſibility and freedom of expreſſion or other elements, where modern tools and methods can really help it ſhine and be eaſier to write how one wants, or diſplay text how one wants or needs, than it ever was hiſtorically.
 Wider ſpacing is ſomething that is truly uſeful and of great benefit to both humans and machines ; the long s, I’d ſay that the main benefit is one of expreſſion and æſthetick overall, and juſt an orthographical convention and viſually different way of doing things. It can be beneficial, but I worry it can alſo be harmful, and looking at ſome of the language reforms in places like the USSR and China, or the Literacy Campaign in Cuba, we can ſee that having ſomething more ſimple might be more beneficial to literacy, but there is ſtill room for different preſentation or ways of writing, eſpecially when people can eaſily cuſtomize their viewing experience. The main iſſue with that, however, is the general technological barrier and fact that there’s no default way to do that without going out of one’s way to get the right addons or typefaces, which ought to be available by default. That would be a great acceſſibility feature.

Þ is a neat letter, and I think it’s actually quite uſeful. I perſonally don’t uſe it in my orthography, but I’d ſupport its general uſe. It would, in my opinion, be an improvement, and ſave on ſome typing, as th is the moſt common digraph in Engliſh, and would give the language a nice flow in reading.

It can take time to learn to read with it, as it can be ſimilar to other letters. Moſt people ſee it being ſimilar to an f, to which it is moſt ſimilar, but I’ve alſo had people ſay it looks like an l or even t to them, which is intereſting.
 It originates in Old Roman Curſive, where it was an elongated form of s, where it was juſt part of the convention. After that, it was uſed in all forms of the alphabet, and has thus been uſed in moſt languages that alſo uſe the Latin alphabet. Newer languages don’t have it hiſtorically, but even Vietnameſe did uſe it at one time. It later was uſed in printing. Here’s an article that talks a bit about its hiſtory and uſe, and here’s another that talks about the rules for its uſe in different languages and time periods ; although, it doeſn’t liſt all languages or rules, as it doeſn’t cover caſes like “ misſtate ” verſus “ croſstie.” It is one of the moſt comprehenſive articles I’ve ſeen, though, and is overall very good. Hiſtorical people never wrote down much about its uſe, which is intereſting, as everyone was uſing it for about a thouſand years.

I’ve never had anyone have a ſtruggle with wider ſpacing, but ſome people do find it ſtyliſtically unhappy or were taught ſomething wrong about it. There’s actually a lot of miſinformation ſurrounding the hiſtory of ſpacing and why it changed, ſuch as ſaying it’s a “  a veſtige of the typewriter era.” It’s not—we’ve done ſpacing like that for the entirety of printing hiſtory  : ſetting two ſpaces on typewriters was in emulation of the ſtandard printing practice. There’s actually a really neat blog that diſcuſſes this and other bits of hiſtory about it, which you and others might enjoy.
 I don’t perſonally know enough about MacOS tools to ſuggeſt ſomething that could enable mode ſuitable ſpacing characters automatically, but I can look into it it it would be helpful ! That ſoftware, depending on how it works, might be able to do it, though. Traditionally, we’d have the wideſt ſpace after terminal punctuation (between ſentences), ſlightly wider after colons and ſemi-colons, and very ſmall ſpaces between moſt punctuation and the words. The main point is to give the reader time to reſt and abſorb what they’ve juſt read, as well as to clearly deſignate and give importance to the punctuation and various parts of ſentences, but the wider ſpacing does ſerve other purpoſes as well.
 If you’re in a browſer and like reading with it, one thing I could recommend is a typeface that automatically ſpaces around punctuation and an addon like Stylus to apply it. Elſtob is one ſuch typeface. Here’s an example of what your comment looks like to me : 

That’s a good point : it can be more difficult to read if not acclimated to it, which ſomewhat negates the potential benefit. Seeming unneceſſary or being more complex is one reaſon it fell out of faſhion, but the primary driver, at leaſt in Engliſh, was ſocio-political. People at the time wanted to draw a diſtinction between the old way and new way as things were being more and more induſtrialized and ſtandardized—new typefaces alſo were being developed and adopted at the time, further reflecting theſe feelings and deſire for change. The arguments in favour of the long s and its potential benefits are far leſs objectively diſcernable than thoſe for wider ſpacing. It’s alſo true that being farther from what is familiar can take longer to comprehend or read, which could be poſitive if ſomeone takes more time to think about what they’re doing or what one is trying to convey, but negative if it detracts and diſtracts from the content, as you pointed out.

It’s the long s, a variant of the letter s, which has been uſed in Engliſh (and moſt other languages that uſe the Latin alphabet) for moſt of its written hiſtory. It ſtarted to fall out of faſhion in the 19th century, but I ſtill uſe it in accordance with the typeſetting rules followed in high-quality printing of the late 18th century. Regarding readability, that’s one reaſon I uſe it, other than finding hiſtorical printing beautiful and intereſting, as well as other reaſons :‌ The more varied ſhape the long s adds to words and lines of text can aid reading. I’ve had people ſay it helps with dyſlexia too, but alſo have had people ſay it’s not helpful and confuſing. I’ve been conſidering making a poſt here to get the opinions of people here from a materialiſt perſpective, as the dialecticks involved are curious to think about, and I’ve been internally debating whether it actually does what I believe and intend with its uſe.

This is a feature of Markdown, which is what Hexbear uſes to format poſts. What Operating Syſtem are you uſing ? I uſe em quads between ſentences, as is the common practice in older printing, but an en quad and a ſpace alſo works (ſometimes even better than an em quad due to allowing for more expanſion in juſtified lines), as was done on the Linotype machines. For Windows, it’s eaſy to make an A‌utoHotKey ſcript to replace the double ſpace with ſomething more workable, and on Linux, there are various options available.