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

[Erin Blake]

Belatedly realized that there's a super-easy way to tell the difference
between a Tironian sign "et" and an ampersand, I just didn't think to
articulate it before: an ampersand extends above x-height, a Tironian sign
et does not.

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 5:28 PM Erin Blake <erin.blake.folger at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/attachments/20210921/623d4784/attachment-0001.htm>