Steve, Lyn: Different organisations use different ways of showing the expanded forms of words contracted in original documents, but in my experience it is normal to indicate letters added by the transcriber by placing them in brackets. These are often angled as in "th<e> apostle" or simple as in "th(e) apostle". Square brackets [ ] are usually reserved for transcriber's comments. One reason for indicating even obvious extensions is that what is obvious to one person may not be to another. For example even "thapostle" might, depending on the context, be "th<e> apostle". "th<is> apostle", th<at> apostle", etc. But the main reason is that any transcription should be as faithful to the original as possible. Best wishes Paul Prescott ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lyn Boothman" <annys@boothman27.fsnet.co.uk> To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 9:14 PM Subject: RE: [OEL] Will of John Cadde of Herefordshire > Steve > The line above thapostle is to show you that there is something missing. > What you show depends what you are transcribing for. If you need an > absolutely accurate transcription you might do th[e] apostle or the > apostle with the e of the underlined (can't make my IE do that at the > moment) but if you want to make it as readable as possible, and there is > no doubt about the missing letter/s, you can just transcribe it as the > apostle without showing that it was abbreviated. I am doing a > publication for Suffolk Record Society and their guide says 'obvious > abbreviations should be abbreviated without comment'. > > Of course if there is an abbreviation where there are several > possibilities and you are opting for one of them, then you need to show > that. > > Lyn B > > > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > Going away for a while? > Don't forget to UNSUBSCRIBE! > OLD-ENGLISH-L-request@rootsweb.com > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.634 / Virus Database: 406 - Release Date: 18-03-2004