Early texting?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/18/2009 07:35 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>I think "TP" = "tippy" = "extremely fashionable".

Sounds good to me.

>I think "AQ" probably should  = "ague", but the "fortie" is a mystery to
>me, and I think the line may be garbled somehow. (Is the original
>printed with long "s" which looks like "f", BTW?)

As I wrote originally, there are (at least) two publications of this
poem in Early American Newspapers.  While they differ in some
respects, most if not all of the differences are due to sloppy
punctuation and printing in the earlier copy.  But here both are
identical, "AQfortie" is set without an intervening space (the second
publication properly includes some word spacing that is absent in the
first, so I assume this instance is as intended), and to the best of
my eyesight it is not a long "s".  But your eyes may vary, and you're
welcome to look yourself.

Joel

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