I was reading Chapter 2 of Leviathan, on Page 17 of my edition (but I'm not sure if most editions have the same numbering). Hobbes spells the same word two different ways, "brain" and "brayn".
This is the first instance:
… in sense, the Brain, and Nerves, which are the necessary Organs of sense …
And this is the second:
… for the connexion they have with the Brayn, and other Organs …
It'd be strange for either one to just be a spelling mistake, since a "y" is a pretty obvious difference, and the quotes are pretty close together. Is my edition just weird, or does this actually mean something grammatically?
Best Answer
By the point this was originally published in 1651, English had already come so far from its Middle English days: most of the words are spelled the same, even between different books and different authors! According to the OED blog:
But it was not uncommon to see authors spelling some words inconsistently even at that point. In fact there are some words still like this today (grey vs gray).
I even found some examples that are later than yours. From Citt and Bumpkin (1680):
(I noticed it also uses both Publick and Publique.)
The muses melody (1680):
(This one has both Ladies and Ladyes.)
As for why the Y spelling came to be, again from the OED blog:
Indeed, the spelling brayn is easier to read in Middle English writing, due to how the letters looked.