[Taxacom] italicizing names and Richard Spruce

[Robin Leech]

Hi Sean, 

Tongue in cheek, I add that Richard Spruce should have been a conifer specialist.
And maybe I should have taken up with annelids rather than spiders.

Thanks for the comments.  Newspaper people DO NOT follow normal society.  Standard for them is Dr., Mr., etc.
There are other issues about which I have tangled with newsies.

The AIBS manuals are also good sources for good writing.

Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Edwards
Sent: May-09-15 6:17 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] italicizing names and Richard Spruce

Robin, here is an interesting aside on your Mr, Dr, etc..

The great Victorian bryologist Richard Spruce left a legacy of hundreds of handwritten letters, dating from 13 March 1880, to 20 September 1893. 
These are held at The Manchester Museum, and I had the privilege of transcribing all 60,870 words.

Spruce regularly abbreviated words by substituting the last part with a point. With other words he abbreviated a word by omitting the central part and terminating the word with the last letter(s) written superscript over a point. As an easy transcription convention for the latter, I used a point preceding the last letter(s) typed in normal size. Examples include Rich.d, Jun.r., spec.ns, espec.y., faithf.y, Cha.s (Charles), and of course M.r though not consistently. Spruce underlined specific names, a handwriting convention to indicate italics. 
I'm sure that these conventions were normal then.

My understanding -- rightly or wrongly -- is that the convention was to represent an omission with a point in more-or-less the appropriate place. So if a word was 'gutted' as in Mister, the point under a superscripted terminal letter was awkward and in due course omitted. But if the word was truncated -- as in /Hyp./ or /H./ for /Hypnum/ -- then the point remained.

This seems logical, and so Dr, Mr, etc. should never have been terminated by a point? I could be wrong, and would welcome comments from anybody with a more literary background than myself -- not difficult!

And lastly, the contents of Spruce's letters are of far greater interest
-- bryological, political (he was a staunch Liberal) and social -- than where he placed the point.

Sean

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean Edwards, Thursley, UK
email:sean.r.edwards at btinternet.com


On 08/05/2015 16:32, Robin Leech wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
> [.....]
> We used to put Dr., Mr., Mrs., but no more (for at least 25 years).  They are now Dr, Mr, and Mrs.
> [.....]
>
> Robin

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