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

Wed Sep 22 13:55:13 MDT 2021

Counsel for the opposition reporting in.

I'm no expert, but here's some of the context surrounding the decision to transcribe a 'Tironian et' as an ampersand. As Erin mentions, a lot of people were mistaking a blackletter ampersand for a Tironian et. I consulted Paul Needham, incunabulist. Skipping to the end of our conversation, he said that he transcribes all sigla representing 'and' in whatever language as an ampersand. This approach to transcribing all sigla representing 'and' in print simplifies things and doesn't require that a cataloger know what Tironian notes are.

Almost all the opposition to this change came from folks in the manuscript community. This got me thinking "why."

  *   Tironian notes<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes> were developed as a system of shorthand. Can you call a symbol a Tironian et if other notes from the system aren't also in use? I could argue that a 7-shaped symbol for 'and' is just a graphical variant of an ampersand, just as both long and short s's are graphical variants of the letter 's'.
  *   The widespread misidentification of Tironian et, even by highly experienced catalogers, argues for simplification of treatment in favor of consistency of meaning.
  *   Tironian notes are a manuscript tradition. DCRM(B), and for the moment DCRMR, concerns itself with printed text. I have limited experience with incunables myself, but haven't seen use of Tironian notes (not just the 'et') in use in print. I would be interested to be proved wrong.
  *   As a system of manuscript shorthand that doesn't generally apply to printed text, it should be a part of manuscript-specific instructions. I would further venture to argue that Tironian et's should only be considered such when they are used with other Tironian notes as part of a system of shorthand. Otherwise, it's just a siglum representing 'and' and the best representation of that is an ampersand.

______________________
Deborah J Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. | Senior Cataloger | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 East Capitol Street, S.E. Washington, DC 20003 | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> | www.folger.edu<http://www.folger.edu/> | Opinions her own

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> On Behalf Of Erin Blake
Sent: Tuesday, 21 September, 2021 12:24
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Tironian "et" revisited: not an ampersand

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<mailto:eblake at folger.edu>  |  www.folger.edu<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/G6_BCzp4MAt37BLHXdW1D?domain=urldefense.com>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers

On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 5:28 PM Erin Blake <erin.blake.folger at gmail.com<mailto: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<mailto:eblake at folger.edu>  |  www.folger.edu<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/G6_BCzp4MAt37BLHXdW1D?domain=urldefense.com>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers

On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 5:14 PM Jessie Sherwood <jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:erin.blake.folger at gmail.com>> wrote:
Julie Kemper posed an excellent question on the Folger blog post about Brevigraphs<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/6CKXCADX3rHg8oYH9BRuS?domain=collation.folger.edu> 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://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/qkblCBBX3vS1ymofjH2yY?domain=listserver.lib.byu.edu>, then again in 2011<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/sa8ACDkZ3xi1ymPflBi4_?domain=listserver.lib.byu.edu>, and again in 2013<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Y5cnCERX3ytmYGPCQUeX-?domain=listserver.lib.byu.edu> 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.  [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.
= & (Latin, see in context<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/2WTICG6X3AHm6lgC14cW3?domain=collation.folger.edu>)
= & (English, see in context<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Sus3CJ6K31HRVzXTyQFAd?domain=collation.folger.edu>)
  = &c. (Latin, see in context<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/kZcKCKr73GUl6wJH2K9Ot?domain=collation.folger.edu>)
8.  [7 at beginning of word]
An alternative shape for &, but actually the Tironian short hand<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/PVVBCL913GTA7OvC5zTFe?domain=en.wikipedia.org> 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://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/7sY2CM8K3Xtg78lHNuMWG?domain=en.wikipedia.org>“) 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.
= & (Latin, see in context<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4su3CNkK3GiAzxRClfz4y?domain=collation.folger.edu>)
= &[cetera] (Latin, with r-rotunda, see in context<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/2TUiCOYX3GiJMXGsR4xgC?domain=collation.folger.edu>; 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<mailto:eblake at folger.edu>  |  www.folger.edu<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/G6_BCzp4MAt37BLHXdW1D?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<mailto: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<mailto:jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu>

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