ABSTRACT

We expect history to show change. Yet if we look at examples like Figures 9.1 and 9.2 the enduring impression of the period 1600 to the present is that remarkably little change has occurred in the look and spelling of English words. It is this paradox which this chapter sets out to illuminate. In Figure 9.1, with allowance for the less sophisticated print technology, the writing from 1683 is very like today bar some extra use of capitals and a strange shape for the letter <s>. Even handwritten Figure 9.2 from the late eighteenth century is in a hand similar to that which one might read now and, although it does use some spellings no longer standard in English, and <ye> for <the> (see also Hill, this volume), it is not much harder to read than the average shopping list today.