<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Short answer to your question, Erin: Yes.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And to Julie’s question: No.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">John</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Sep 20, 2021, at 2:34 PM, Erin Blake <<a href="mailto:erin.blake.folger@gmail.com" class="">erin.blake.folger@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Julie Kemper posed an excellent question on the <a href="https://collation.folger.edu/brevigraphs" class="">Folger blog post about Brevigraphs</a> last week, "</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:inherit" class="">One question I have is why ampersands and Tironian notes are treated the same. To me they are separate symbols and ampersands should be transcribed as “&” while Tironian notes should be transcribed as “[et]”. Am I being overly pedantic about something which hardly anyone cares about?</span></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">That gave me a deja-vu feeling, so I went to the DCRM-L archives, and sure enough, back in <a href="https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2003-March/000423.html" class="">2003</a>, then again in <a href="https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2011-August/002495.html" class="">2011</a>, and again in <a href="https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2013-September/003226.html" class="">2013</a> the collective "we" of this list identified the instruction to transcribe a Tironian sign “et” (⁊) as an ampersand as a problem: mounting evidence showed that "[et]" would be a more appropriate transcription than "&" but the problem was set aside until "the joint DCRM" was being written. In other words, the time is now.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Looking back at the discussions, I think the problem originated because gothic type ampersands (in no. 1 of the blog post, an "e" and "t" combined) were being conflated with the Tironian sign "et" (no. 8, short-hand representation of the sound "et"):</div><div class=""><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><b class="">1.</b> </span><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""> <img class="gmail-alignnone gmail-wp-image-19417" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Plain-ampersand.png" alt="&" width="15" height="14" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;"></strong><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">[ampersand]<br class=""></strong>This is the easy one. Ampersands are still in use today, so instead of expanding the brevigraph <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">&</em></strong> in square brackets, rare materials catalogers simply use an ampersand. <br class=""><img class="gmail-alignnone gmail-wp-image-19417" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Plain-ampersand.png" alt="&" width="15" height="14" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;">= & (Latin, <a href="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Ampersand_in_context.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">see in context</a>)<br class=""><img class="gmail-wp-image-19577 gmail-alignnone" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/gothic-et.png" alt="" width="16" height="22" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;">= & (English, <a href="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/et_in_context.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">see in context</a>)<br class=""><img class="gmail-wp-image-19574 gmail-alignnone" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etc.png" alt="" width="29" height="19" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;"> = &c. (Latin, <a href="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etc_in_context.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">see in context</a>)<br class=""><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">8. </strong><img class="gmail-wp-image-19419 gmail-alignnone" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/et.png" alt="Tironian sign et" width="19" height="19" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">[<em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">7</em> at beginning of word]<br class=""></strong>An alternative shape for <em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">&</strong></em>, but actually the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">Tironian short hand</a> symbol <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">⁊</em></strong>, which represents the <em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">sound</em> “et” (rather than the word as such). If a particular font didn’t have a dedicated Tironian sign et, then <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">ꝛ</em></strong> (a small “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_rotunda" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">r rotunda</a>“) could be used. Because the symbol is a representation of <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">&</em></strong> and because <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">&</em></strong> is still used today, rare materials catalogers silently replace it with <strong style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class=""><em style="box-sizing:border-box;line-height:inherit" class="">&</em></strong>. See no. 1 for ampersandy ampersands.<br class=""><img class="gmail-wp-image-19419 gmail-alignnone" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/et.png" alt="Tironian sign et" width="19" height="19" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;">= & (Latin, <a href="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Tironian_sign_et_in_context.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">see in context</a>)<br class=""><img class="gmail-alignnone gmail-wp-image-19425" src="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etc-50px-e1631300096889.png" alt="&[cetera]" width="32" height="29" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0px;">= &[cetera] (Latin, with r-rotunda, <a href="http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etcetera_in_context.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(204,53,53);line-height:inherit;text-decoration-line:none" class="">see in context</a>; see no. 3 for [cetera])</blockquote></div><div class="">Is it time to move the Tironian sign "et" into DCRMR's "Brevigraphs" chart, leaving "&" behind in the "Early letterforms and symbols" chart?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thanks,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Erin.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class=""><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="SignatureSanitizer__MailAutoSig" class=""><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" class="">______________________<br class=""></span></a><a name="SignatureSanitizer__MailAutoSig" class=""><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" class="">Erin Blake, Ph.D. | Senior Cataloger | Folger
Shakespeare Library | 201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC,
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