Welcome to the Charles C.W. Cook podcast, episode 10.

That's right. We've made it all the way to double figures.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

And I hope you're having fun trying to work out on which day these episodes will be released.

I've received a few emails from people recently saying,

Aha! You're doing Wednesdays.

And the answer is, no, I'm not. I'm making it up as I go along.

It's a total lottery.

This depends on which day my guests are available and I have enough ideas.

I got an email last week with a suggestion.

And that email read,

Quirk of late 18th, early 19th century English, the use of the

F character where we now use the S make the distinction. Was it pronounced differently? When was it

abandoned? Who abandoned it first? English or Americans? Now, this isn't quite a Q&A question because it's not about me.

But it did fascinate me, so I started looking into it.

Before I did, I actually had no idea what all that was about.

I spent a great deal of my time at university

poring over primary source documents

from Britain and America that were written in the 18th century, and of course I saw it everywhere.

But because I knew vaguely that the character was pronounced S rather than F, I just made the

substitution in my head and moved on.

As a kid, it confused the hell out of me because the character looks exactly like an F.

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