[DCRB-L] [WG2] VV vv W w

[James Larrabee]

Comment on the W problem:

Is the presence or absence of a filed V a sufficient basis for two
different transcriptions?

(Not that it is always very easy to tell whether that V is really filed
or not. Why multiply practical difficulties? You know, worn type, uneven
paper, foxing, flyspecks, poor inking, tiny type, lousy eyes, &c. &c.)

In all three cases (VV, filed VV, W), isn't the printer representing the
letter W, though by slightly different means? Bowers, as a general
point, takes the printer's clear intention into account.

W was established, was it not, as a letter in gothic, pre-humanist
orthography? It certainly occurs in incunables. Humanists (mostly, or
originally, Italians after all) may have hated it--non-Roman,
non-ancient, non-whatever. It wouldn't be in Latin and Romance-language
typecases, I suppose. Printers still had to deal with it. Do we have to
perpetuate their problems rather than their intentions? Maybe a printer
ran out of n's and chopped off an m to fill in. A purely hypothetical
case, but wouldn't that be close enough to an n for transcription
purposes? The w undoubtedly was at some point a vv/uu, but how far in
the past? And wasn't it given its own name because it was a new letter?
(Hmm, is "double u" a name or a description?) At any rate, by the
printing era, it was clearly a letter in the languages that used it,
even if not found in roman fonts. Would this be an instance of
orthography rather than of a mere typographical necessity (i.e.
orthography demands "w", a printer's bind produced "vv"). We should
preserve orthography. If desirable, "vv" can go into 246s. Could the
"VV" be a ghost of quasi-facsimile thinking?

Granted there's been enough debate over this issue, and my peace of mind
doesn't depend on where, if anywhere, we go with this. I just find it
hard to think that that little filed-off bit (which lands us squarely in
the middle of VV and W) is the right place to draw a line, if draw one
we must.

James Larrabee
Robbins Cataloger
Law Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94712-3131
(510) 642-1114
larrabee at law.berkeley.edu