On 6/06/2017 10:35 PM, Tompkins, Matthew (Dr.) wrote: >> >> As was the custom, it is written as one long sentence with minimal >> punctuation (the dots are more in the nature of commas, and the >> occasional initial capital letters introduce sense blocks or phrases > >rather than sentences). >> From: Peter Stewart <[email protected]> Sent: 06 June 2017 14:35 > Punctuation added by editors can be misleading - medial stops (as you say, more in the nature of commas, though not necessarily interchangeable with them) should be left as written rather than turned into commas, especially when the editor is going to add more of these anyway. That seems to me a more useful principle than trying to standardise name forms. > ----------------------------------------------- This is an abstract or calendar, not a verbatim transcript or word-for-word translation. Preserving idiosyncratic 13th-century punctuation and capitalisation has no place in such publications, where it is normal to punctuate and capitalise the abstract according to modern principles in order to ensure clarity. Matt Tompkins

On 7/06/2017 12:23 AM, Tompkins, Matthew (Dr.) wrote: > On 6/06/2017 10:35 PM, Tompkins, Matthew (Dr.) wrote: > >>> As was the custom, it is written as one long sentence with minimal >>> punctuation (the dots are more in the nature of commas, and the >>> occasional initial capital letters introduce sense blocks or phrases >>> rather than sentences). >>> > From: Peter Stewart <[email protected]> > Sent: 06 June 2017 14:35 > > Punctuation added by editors can be misleading - medial stops (as you > say, more in the nature of commas, though not necessarily > interchangeable with them) should be left as written rather than turned > into commas, especially when the editor is going to add more of these > anyway. That seems to me a more useful principle than trying to > standardise name forms. > ----------------------------------------------- > This is an abstract or calendar, not a verbatim transcript or word-for-word translation. Preserving idiosyncratic 13th-century punctuation and capitalisation has no place in such publications, where it is normal to punctuate and capitalise the abstract according to modern principles in order to ensure clarity. Of course I was making a general observation, not a criticism of Elrington's practice in a specific book - medial stops have no place in contemporary English, where the full modern range of punctuation is available. Words do, however, so that reducing Walter and his heirs to just Walter is not good practice on Elrington's part in this specific instance. The same applies in general to capitalisations, that for much of the medieval period were used more for emphasis than as a rule for proper nouns or starting sentences. Italian editors have tended to observe this over the past century or so, while elsewhere medieval orthography has more usually been modernised, or anyway standardised. Luckily this too is changing now - an editor is doing a more faithful job by reproducing the text as exactly as possible in print, or by reproducing one preferred manuscript if there are several and giving the variants from other codices, rather than making a new version full of invisible variants. Adding editorial commas as a silent gloss on the text can change the meaning even of Shakespeare, much more so in medieval Latin. T.E. Lawrence's objection applies - this is mainly a help to people who don't (or shouldn't) need it in the first place. Peter Stewart Peter Stewart