[DCRM-L] Tironian "et" revisited: not an ampersand

[Erin Blake]

I think Jessie Sherwood is right: the bottom two examples are just fancy
Tironian signs (and if I'd opened up my copy of Jean F. Preston and
Laetitia Yeandle's *English Handwriting 1400-1650*, which was on my desk
while I was writing, I'd have seen that their list of typographical
examples includes the exact same shape as the first one).

I was trying to make an e-t ligature out of them, but looking at
handwritten Tironian "et" examples (and handwritten examples where "&"
replaces the sound "et" in a word that isn't "and"), they're not
[additional evidence: my own online folder of examples is called "Fancy
Tironian et"].

I'm going to update the blog accordingly.

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 Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 5:14 PM Jessie Sherwood <jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu>
wrote:

> Also, to my eye, the bottom two examples under ampersand look more like
> Tironian ets with swanky approach strokes than e-t ligatures.
>
> On Mon, 20 Sept 2021 at 12:43, Jessie Sherwood <
> jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>> Is it time to move the Tironian sign "et" into DCRMR's "Brevigraphs"
>> chart, leaving "&" behind in the "Early letterforms and symbols" chart?
>>
>> I think so. As you say, the Tironian et and the ampersand are not at all
>> the same thing: & is a ligature, while the Tironian et is part an early
>> form of shorthand.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 20 Sept 2021 at 11:34, Erin Blake <erin.blake.folger at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Julie Kemper posed an excellent question on the Folger blog post about
>>> Brevigraphs <https://collation.folger.edu/brevigraphs> last week, "
>>>
>>>> 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?
>>>
>>>
>>> That gave me a deja-vu feeling, so I went to the DCRM-L archives, and
>>> sure enough, back in 2003
>>> <https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2003-March/000423.html>,
>>> then again in 2011
>>> <https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2011-August/002495.html>,
>>> and again in 2013
>>> <https://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/2013-September/003226.html>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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"):
>>>
>>>> *1.* * [image: &]*
>>>> *[ampersand]*This is the easy one. Ampersands are still in use today,
>>>> so instead of expanding the brevigraph *&* in square brackets, rare
>>>> materials catalogers simply use an ampersand.
>>>> [image: &]= & (Latin, see in context
>>>> <http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Ampersand_in_context.jpg>
>>>> )
>>>> = & (English, see in context
>>>> <http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/et_in_context.jpg>
>>>> )
>>>>   = &c. (Latin, see in context
>>>> <http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etc_in_context.jpg>
>>>> )
>>>> *8.  *[image: Tironian sign et]
>>>> *[7 at beginning of word]*An alternative shape for *&*, but actually
>>>> the Tironian short hand <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes>
>>>>  symbol *⁊*, which represents the *sound* “et” (rather than the word
>>>> as such). If a particular font didn’t have a dedicated Tironian sign et,
>>>> then *ꝛ* (a small “r rotunda <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_rotunda>“)
>>>> could be used. Because the symbol is a representation of *&* and
>>>> because *&* is still used today, rare materials catalogers silently
>>>> replace it with *&*. See no. 1 for ampersandy ampersands.
>>>> [image: Tironian sign et]= & (Latin, see in context
>>>> <http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Tironian_sign_et_in_context.jpg>
>>>> )
>>>> [image: &[cetera]]= &[cetera] (Latin, with r-rotunda, see in context
>>>> <http://collation.folger.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/etcetera_in_context.jpg>;
>>>> see no. 3 for [cetera])
>>>
>>> Is it time to move the Tironian sign "et" into DCRMR's "Brevigraphs"
>>> chart, leaving "&" behind in the "Early letterforms and symbols" chart?
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jessie Sherwood, Ph.D., MLIS
>> Associate Librarian
>> The Robbins Collection
>> UC Berkeley, School of Law
>> Tel: 510.643.1236
>> jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jessie Sherwood, Ph.D., MLIS
> Associate Librarian
> The Robbins Collection
> UC Berkeley, School of Law
> Tel: 510.643.1236
> jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu
>
>
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