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IIRC the movable type printing press was imported from the continent when printing in England started, and by importing that includes the typesets and staff to
by wirrbel 5y ago
IIRC the movable type printing press was imported from the continent when printing in England started, and by importing that includes the typesets and staff to operate the printing presses. French printers typesetting English text were not very motivated to establish extra characters.
Random related anecdote: For years the Mormons would distribute their Book of Mormon in German translations but these were printed overseas and they didn't have the 'ß' character, so they used the greek letter β to substitute 'daβ' instead of 'daß', etc. We tend to forget living in the digital publishing age how limiting mechanical workflows can be.
- bhaak 5y ago> We tend to forget living in the digital publishing age how limiting mechanical workflows can be. This β <-> ß confusion endured into the digital age. For example code page 850 has a character called "Sharp s Small" but it is placed among Greek characters. And several fonts didn't display an ß but a β https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437#cite_ref-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437#cite_ref-21 In this case, the double use was probably intentional (to save space in the limited character set range) but still confusing to the reader when they encountered the wrong glyph.