Spelling and punctuation practice in London, Wellcome Library, MS 3731 (ff. 3r–43r, f. 125v)

Abstract

A large and growing body of literature has investigated the standardization process of the English language in the Late Modern English period (Auer 939–948, Percy 55–79, Tieken-Boon van Ostade 37–51), with various factors contributing to it, such as the printing press, spelling reforms, normative grammars and dictionaries. In the process of standardization, which “involves the suppression of the optional variability” in a language (Milroy and Milroy 6, original emphasis), prescriptivism played a crucial role, and it has been argued that, by the early eighteenth century, English spelling had become standardized and stable (Scragg 80). However, Tieken-Boon van Ostade points out that in the eighteenth century two spelling systems coexisted, i.e., a public and a private one (11). The present study provides additional evidence to the existing knowledge of the topic through the analysis of the spelling and punctuation system of the text in London, Wellcome Library, MS 3731, an eighteenth-century collection of medical instructions and cookery recipes. By means of the study of contractions, superscript letters, capitalization and line breaks, this article unveils new insights into the variability and characteristics of the spelling and punctuation system in this period. The findings provide valuable evidence and enrich our understanding of the broader standardization process in English historical linguistics.