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From: "John Dean" <john-dean@fraglineone.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: ff at the beginning of a word (usually a proper name?)
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 04:38:46 +0100
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donald girod wrote:
> What is the explanation or origin of a spelling like ffrench? Is it
> possibly the case that ff is simply an alternate way to do something
> like capitalize? I'm just curious.
Words that we now spell with a single 'f' at the beginning often appeared a
few centuries ago with a double 'f' though others had only the single 'f'.
Example from the Morte d'Arthur:
http://quartet.cs.unb.ca/tapor/cgi-bin/view-works.cgi?c=middleen.1448&pos=37
4236: The ffelonne with the ffyne swerde freschely he strykes,
4237: The ffelettes of the fferrere syde he flassches in sondyre,
4238: Thorowe jopowne and jesserawnte of gentille mailes!
4239: The freke fichede in the flesche an halfe fotte large;
I'm not sure why, but it's possible that some proper names were written down
in the same fashion and some of those survive today - fforde, ffoulkes,
ffrench and so on. However, some of the owners retain the double 'f' but
capitalise the first one - like Jasper Fforde, author of the "Thursday Next"
books":
http://www.thursdaynext.com/
--
John Dean
Oxford
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