Subject: tc-list accuracy of transcriptions

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 07:31:21 -0700

It is ironic that those commenting on the accuracy of Reuben Swanson's
collations misspelled his name.
Why not ask Scholars Press to publish an annual leaflet referring to
previously published lists of errata and adding new findings?
It is, incidentally, not completely impossible for lists of errata
to have errors in them. Workers in English literature are familiar with the
phenomenon.
And why not agree on a system of indicating doubtful letters using the
normal keyboard symbols? For example, use dots for illegible letters,
with the understanding that there is no way to insure how many letters
there are if they are illegible, and question marks after letters that
are only partially legible. Workers in English literature use the
pointed brackets < > to indicate passages torn or worn away. That seems to
me to take care of all possibilities. Letters are legible, partially
legible (doubtful), illegible, or missing. Footnotes can explain scribal
corrections.
   Vinton A. Dearing