[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Paschen paper online



Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 

 > For the "s"
 >  > that looks as "f", just replace by "s". The combination "fs" is the
 >  > "beta" of more recent German (what a weird change),
 >
 > It's actually called (as pronounced in English) et set...  as you say,
 > equivalent to double s. Common in forms like Strasse, weiss, Mass, etc.  I
 > think it's a handwriting/typesetting thing.

Looked it up:
ess zet

equivalent to sz - it's a subtly different sound than ss, and is generally
used at the end of word (or stem.. e.g. Strassen, Flussen)
It comes from the fact that the double ss is used in two syllable words,
where the syllable break is between the "s"es, as opposed to just a "long
duration s"

A friend pointed me to:
http://www.steincollectors-dot-org/library/articles/fraktur/fraktur.htm
which describes fraktur, as used on beer steins (more commonly, in Muenchen,
ein Krug)

And, of course, there is a move afoot to legally change the spelling rules
in German (as of August 98), and of course we must have official rules,
nicht wahr?
(Deutschland, das Land der Geboten und Verboten)
  The current rules (which most dictionaries will follow) came about in 1902,
some twenty years after Paschen wrote his paper.

As far as the f, s thing goes..

f (with cross bar) used beginning and middle, s (like we use now) used at
end of words, until  about 1800.. so if you're looking back to stuff that
Ben Franklin wrote, for instance, you're going to have to deal with the
"long s"


Now we're all ready to start digging into the real basic literature behind
the TC.  Up until, say, 1920 or thereabouts (probably WW I) German was the
scientific language of discourse.  If you didn't publish in the Annalen der
Physik or equivalent, you were a nobody. Only in the last 50-60 years has
the English language hegemony of science become basically complete (Gott sei
dank!, since I'm an English speaker).  Even as recently as the 60's (when my
father got his doctorate in EE), the big burning question was whether you
should do Russian or German as your foreign language.  German for the
historical context, Russian for the latest stuff.

(I don't know that Tesla actually ever published anything in Serbo-croat,
though.