Topic 4. Transcription

[Robert L. Maxwell]

>Then I wrote:
>>>Incidentally, I could probably cite examples of early English revolutionary
>>>pamphlets in which the i/j usage is a clue to whether you have the original
>>>or a contemporary reprint.
>and Bob wrote:
>>Yes, but that clue would be lost through the application of 0H, would it
not?
>
>No, 0H tells us to transcribe "INIURY" as "iniury" if the printer was still
>using i for the consonant. If we instead transcribe it as "injury", we've
>fuzzed up this edition with one with title page reading "INJURY", where the
>printer has converted to using j's in the text. Such cases exist.

Not to beat a dead horse, but do I misunderstand 0H? Supposing we have two
items, printed the same year, only distinguished by INIURY in one issue and
INJURY on the t.p. of the second. (Are these by the same printer?) Isn't it
likely that despite the capitalization on the t.p., the "pattern ...
employed by the particular printer" of lowercase i/j is going to be the
same in both, particularly if they are by the same printer? Or even if not
by the same printer, isn't it likely that the conventions are going to be
the same, if they were printed at the same time? If the 0H pattern, then,
is "j" for consonantal i, then in both cases we would transcribe under 0H
"injury", would we not? Or if the pattern employed by the printer in both
is "i", we would transcribe both "iniury." At least this was my thinking
when I responded to what you wrote above.

Bob
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Robert L. Maxwell
Special Collections and Ancient Languages Cataloger
6428 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 378-5568
robert_maxwell@byu.edu
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