[DCRM-L] Transcription question: why is our small "s" always an "s" but our small "i" is sometimes a "j"?

[Erin Blake]

Before any wild rumors start to spread, I'm not in favor of transcribing a
long-s as anything other than an ordinary "s" -- even in systems that can
display it correctly, I don't think it would alphabetize correctly. I was
thinking the other way around: an "i" should be transcribed as an "i" no
matter where it appears in the word.

HOWEVER, thinking about it some more (thanks, Bob!) has led me to see where
my wish to transcribe a final "i" as an "i" (even when it's shaped like a
"j") falls apart. We transcribe lowercase "u" and "v" the way they appear
in the word, following the early modern logic of which shape goes where.
The fact that we now consider those shapes to be two separate letters,
a vowel and a consonant, is irrelevant. Sadly, it means early modern
spellings don't alphabetize correctly (because "u" and "v" should be in the
same position).

Ooooh! Maybe a future cataloging system will allow us to flag records where
"u" and "v" should sort in the same position alphabetically, like the way
the second indicator in the 245 sets how many characters to skip in order
to ignore initial articles in alphabetization...... You could still search
for a specific shape, to make sure you're getting the edition you're
looking for, of course. (Yes, I know I'm dreaming.... but wouldn't that be
cool?)

Erin.





______________________
Erin Blake, Ph.D.  |  Senior Cataloger  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |
201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu  |
www.folger.edu
<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/-t5RCjRgpBtArRXC7R7_2?domain=urldefense.com>
  |  Pronouns: she/her/hers




On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 11:07 PM Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu>
wrote:

> I don't know the answer to this except probably at the time the rules were
> formulated it was impossible to reproduce the long "s" in MARC (or on your
> average typewriter in pre-MARC days) and I'm not sure if even now it's
> possible in OCLC (though you imply it is). But I suspect if we changed the
> rules to require (or even optionally allow) transcription of long "s" we'd
> wind up with lots of people who don't know about the rules seeing these
> records and deciding in other records to transcribe long "s" as "f", so I'm
> not sure what I think about the idea of changing the transcription
> practice. Are there lots of (or even any) examples where long "s" vs. small
> "s" makes a difference to the identification of a particular state or issue?
>
> For my cataloging assignments in Library School we were supposed to TYPE
> OUT catalog cards (if you can believe it, I am such a dinosaur 🙂) and
> one of the books did have long "s"es on the title page; I typed "f" but
> used whiteout to remove part of the bar to turn each into a long "s" (I
> *did*​ know the difference even at that youthful age) and the cataloging
> prof thought it was great (other class members who typed plain "f" lost
> points; of course those who typed "s" were given full credit) but I doubt
> if many catalogers typing out catalog cards for real had time to use
> whiteout in these situations ...
>
> Bob
>
> Robert L. Maxwell
> Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger
> 6728 Harold B. Lee Library
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> (801)422-5568
>
> "We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves
> to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842.
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> on behalf of Erin Blake <
> erin.blake.folger at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 10, 2021 4:33 PM
> *To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
> *Subject:* [DCRM-L] Transcription question: why is our small "s" always
> an "s" but our small "i" is sometimes a "j"?
>
> Does anyone know why the DCRM transcription rules about early modern
> letterforms treat a lowercase "s" different from a lowercase "i"?
>
> An early modern "s" at the front or in the middle of a word has a
> different shape than an "s" at the end of the word, but it's still an "s"
> and we transcribe it as an "s" (despite long-s being a unicode character).
>
> An early modern "i" at the front or in the middle of a word has a
> different shape than an "i" at the end of the word, but we transcribe them
> *differently*, using the letter "j" for a terminal "i" (even though it's
> not a "j", it's a j-shaped "i").
>
> It struck me particularly when looking at the date on one of Hogenberg's
> "Geschichtsblätter" (https://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/s/3bm5h6),
> which I've attached here. (It's the date of the event depicted in the
> engraving, not the imprint, so it's not as weird as it looks).
>
> [image: image.png]
> Thanks,
>
> Erin.
>
>
> ______________________
> Erin Blake, Ph.D.  |  Senior Cataloger  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |
> 201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu  |
> www.folger.edu
> <https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/-t5RCjRgpBtArRXC7R7_2?domain=urldefense.com>
>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers
>
>
>
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