At 10:31 pm +0000 18/12/03, Sue Bate wrote: >The whole idea of Type What You See is for transcribers to do just >that. If we see a space - we leave a space. If there is no space - >we do not put a space in. > >If there is a whole scan of John Smiths, and in the middle there is >a Jonh Smith - then that's exactly what we type. If there's a full >stop after St (as in St. Pancras) - then we put the full stop in our >transcription. It's not for us to judge what the original writer >may have meant. We just do what they did. Why is this so hard to >grasp? > >Sue Bate Because when transcribing handwriting you can't rigidly apply TWYS with regard to spaces or lack of spaces. If 'We just do what they did' our transcriptions would end up with forenames such as 'A nn', 'A aron' & 'BarbarinaElizabethHenrietta' etc. With handwriting some interpretation is clearly involved. If there are problems with spaces, or lack of spaces, in forenames it calls into question how much time should we spend (if any) in deciding whether there is a space, half a space or no space between the 'St' and 'Pancras'? If you have St. Pancras and St Pancras in your district list do you also add 'StPancras' and 'St.Pancras' to the list? -- Regards Dick Jones Leigh-on-Sea Essex UK rcjones@rmplc.co.uk