Note 78 — IX

Abbreviations which deformed written language to such an extent that it is almost undecipherable to modern readers, were once esteemed a positive merit. The habit of making them was continued after printing was invented. In 1475, a printer of Lubec said, in commendation of one of his own books, that he had made free use of abbreviations, to get the whole work in one volume instead of two—a procedure, he thought, that deserved special praise, for he said that the contractions made the book more readable. The modern reader will be of a different opinion. The Logic of Ockham, in folio, printed at Paris in 1488, by Clos-Bruneau, contains, among other abbreviations, this bewildering passage: