Decameron

Vince

unread,

Aug 15, 2020, 1:41:40 AM8/15/20

to Standard Ebooks

As I’m finishing up She, I’m looking for what’s next, and thought I’d try the Decameron. I’ve had it on my shelf for years and never read it, might as well read it for SE.

A few questions to start:

1. The Day bridgeheads are titlecased, the Story bridgeheads are all caps (both transcriptions and scans; you can see them using the first link in #2 below). Would you prefer the story bridgeheads be changed to titlecase as well, or both to be changed to normal case, or…? Since we italicize our bridgeheads, I don’t think it makes sense to leave them caps, even small ones, and to do that I’d still have to titlecase the text. If titlecased, do you want me to leave the Day bridgeheads as is, or run them through se titlecase?

2. There are ten days, ten stories for each day. That’s a fairly pedestrian two-level structure, except each of the days has text associated with it. Sometimes it’s a paragraph (Day 2), sometimes it’s 7500 words (Day 1). The scans label that text “Introduction” so that each Day has an Introduction and then Story 1-10. I’m not sure we can have ten introductions, and even if so, I’m not sure what to name the file (day-1-introduction.xhtml, day-2-introduction.xhtml, etc.?). Keep it as Introduction, or call it something else? (See here for a long one, here for a short one.)

3. As the transcription makes note of, the printed book does not follow the normal convention of starting each paragraph of continued speech with an opening double-quote (maybe because most of the book is being spoken, so they’d be all over the place?). The transcription respected that as well, i.e. did not add opening quotes on each paragraph. Is it OK for our production to respect it as well? (Internal quotes within the stories do switch to single-quotes, so it acts like the double-quotes are present, but it only puts them on the first paragraph of someone starting to speak.)

4. One of the stories has some content that offended the sensibilities of translators prior to the late 20th century, so almost all of them left the section untranslated, i.e. left it in Italian. Payne did that for the translation SE’s pointing to, and the transcription has Italian for those few paragraphs. However, the transcription also has an English version of those paragraphs from a different translation (the Rigg translation that’s also on PG). Here’s a link to the story in the transcription; scroll down just slightly to see the note and the Rigg translation. How would you like this handled in our production?

a. Include the Rigg translation without comment (removing the Italian)?

b. Include the Rigg translation but put an endnote or something on it to note that it’s from a different translation (still removing the Italian)?

c. Leave the Italian without the Rigg translation, i.e. as in the original Payne?

d. Do what PG did and leave the Italian but also offer the English? (Could leave the Italian in the text and put the translation in a footnote, or vice-versa.)

e. Something else I haven’t thought of?

If the answer is a or b or d, I assume that means I would need to add Grigg as a translator? And if so, what would that look like in the se create-draft? (I couldn’t find any mention in the step-by-step or the manual of how to specify multiple translators.) Would I specify both there (--translator=“John Payne and J. M. Rigg”), or just Payne there, but add Grigg in the translator section of the metadata?

(Also, in case it comes up, from what I’ve read the Payne translation is still considered to be better than the Rigg one, so this isn’t a reason to switch to it, I don’t think.)

5. A couple of text-related questions from what I’ve noticed so far.

a. The text makes heavy use of comma-em-dash, i.e. “young men,—yet not so young that the age of the youngest of them was less than five-and-twenty years,—in whom”. I’ve seen those in scans before, but PG usually eliminates the commas in their transcriptions; they left them in here. It does this whether it’s a self-contained comment as above, or it’s just an interjection with a single em-dash, e.g. “what is on like wise to be ensued,—the which methinketh cannot betide without cease of chagrin.” Is it OK to get rid of those commas?

b. It also makes heavy use of parenthetical remarks, and it often (almost always) puts a comma before the closing paren. Sometimes it has a comma leading into the opening paren that isn’t needed, either. For example: “Wherefore, if this that I say please you, (for I am disposed to follow your pleasure therein,) let us do it.” Sometimes there’s no comma leading into the paren, but still one before the closing one, e.g. “but for the filling of his own hand with florins to ensue thereof (as indeed it did,) and causing him to be cited…”. In neither case should be the comma be inside the closing paren. Is it OK to at least move the comma outside the closing paren? I can live with the extra comma before the paren, but that comma inside the paren really offends my sensibilities. :)

Thanks!

Vince

unread,

Aug 15, 2020, 1:52:08 AM8/15/20

to Standard Ebooks

Sorry, forgot one.

Like Le Morte d’Arthur, each Day ends with a statement. Unlike Malory, these are all the same for the first nine days:

Here endeth the X day of the Decameron.

The tenth day just adds “and last” before “day”.

The “Conclusion of the Author” after the last story then ends with:

Here endeth the book called Decameron and surnamed Prince Galahalt.

Do you want to keep those or get rid of them?

Alex Cabal

unread,

Aug 15, 2020, 6:02:58 PM8/15/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

On 8/15/20 12:41 AM, Vince wrote:
> 1. The Day bridgeheads are titlecased, the Story bridgeheads are all
> caps (both transcriptions and scans; you can see them using the first
> link in #2 below). Would you prefer the story bridgeheads be changed to
> titlecase as well, or both to be changed to normal case, or…? Since we
> italicize our bridgeheads, I don’t think it makes sense to leave them
> caps, even small ones, and to do that I’d still have to titlecase the
> text. If titlecased, do you want me to leave the Day bridgeheads as is,
> or run them through se titlecase?

Bridgeheads should be sentence-cased.

> 2. There are ten days, ten stories for each day. That’s a fairly
> pedestrian two-level structure, except each of the days has text
> associated with it. Sometimes it’s a paragraph (Day 2), sometimes it’s
> 7500 words (Day 1). The scans label that text “Introduction” so that
> each Day has an Introduction and then Story 1-10. I’m not sure we can
> have ten introductions, and even if so, I’m not sure what to name the
> file (day-1-introduction.xhtml, day-2-introduction.xhtml, etc.?). Keep
> it as Introduction, or call it something else? (See here

> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/254/mode/2up> for
> a long one, here
> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/102/mode/2up> for
> a short one.)

Sure, we can have multiple introductions. Why not? print-toc might do
some weird things but just override whatever it does with the correct
structure. They would also be marked as bodymatter.

> 3. As the transcription makes note of, the printed book does not follow
> the normal convention of starting each paragraph of continued speech
> with an opening double-quote (maybe because most of the book is being
> spoken, so they’d be all over the place?). The transcription respected
> that as well, i.e. did not add opening quotes on each paragraph. Is it
> OK for our production to respect it as well? (Internal quotes within the

> stories do switch to single-quotes, so it /acts/ like the double-quotes

> are present, but it only puts them on the first paragraph of someone
> starting to speak.)

I think I have to see an example to decide. If it's like regular prose
then we should add those quotes in. There should be something unique or
unusual about the work as a whole to justify not including them.

> 4. One of the stories has some content that offended the sensibilities
> of translators prior to the late 20th century, so almost all of them
> left the section untranslated, i.e. left it in Italian. Payne did that
> for the translation SE’s pointing to, and the transcription has Italian

> for those few paragraphs. However, the transcription /also/ has an

> English version of those paragraphs from a different translation (the
> Rigg translation that’s also on PG). Here’s

> <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23700/23700-h/23700-h.htm#THE_TENTH_STORY3> a

> link to the story in the transcription; scroll down just slightly to see
> the note and the Rigg translation. How would you like this handled in
> our production?

I like the idea of including the English translation from another
source. I suggest removing the Italian, including the English from the
other translator, and putting an endnote there to say what we did and why.

> If the answer is /a/ or /b/ or /d/, I assume that means I would need to

> add Grigg as a translator?

I don't think we need to do that, it looks like it's literally just 2
paragraphs. An endnote will be fine.

> 5. A couple of text-related questions from what I’ve noticed so far.
>
> a. The text makes heavy use of comma-em-dash, i.e. “young men,—yet not
> so young that the age of the youngest of them was less than
> five-and-twenty years,—in whom”. I’ve seen those in scans before, but PG
> usually eliminates the commas in their transcriptions; they left them in
> here. It does this whether it’s a self-contained comment as above, or
> it’s just an interjection with a single em-dash, e.g. “what is on like
> wise to be ensued,—the which methinketh cannot betide without cease of
> chagrin.” Is it OK to get rid of those commas?

Yes, typogrify does that for you.

> b. It also makes heavy use of parenthetical remarks, and it often
> (almost always) puts a comma before the closing paren. Sometimes it has
> a comma leading into the opening paren that isn’t needed, either. For
> example: “Wherefore, if this that I say please you, (for I am disposed
> to follow your pleasure therein,) let us do it.” Sometimes there’s no
> comma leading into the paren, but still one before the closing one, e.g.
> “but for the filling of his own hand with florins to ensue thereof (as
> indeed it did,) and causing him to be cited…”. In neither case should be
> the comma be inside the closing paren. Is it OK to at least move the
> comma outside the closing paren? I can live with the extra comma before
> the paren, but that comma inside the paren really offends my
> sensibilities. :)
>

Yes. That is a weird choice for him to have made.

Alex Cabal

unread,

Aug 15, 2020, 6:03:12 PM8/15/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

We can keep them, as in Morte

On 8/15/20 12:52 AM, Vince wrote:
> Sorry, forgot one.
>
> Like /Le Morte d’Arthur/, each Day ends with a statement. Unlike Malory,

> these are all the same for the first nine days:
>
> Here endeth the X day of the Decameron.
>
> The tenth day just adds “and last” before “day”.
> The “Conclusion of the Author” after the last story then ends with:
>
> Here endeth the book called Decameron and surnamed Prince Galahalt.
>
>
> Do you want to keep those or get rid of them?
>
>
>> On Aug 15, 2020, at 12:41 AM, Vince <al...@letterboxes.org

>> <mailto:al...@letterboxes.org>> wrote:
>>
>> As I’m finishing up /She/, I’m looking for what’s next, and thought

>> I’d try the Decameron. I’ve had it on my shelf for years and never
>> read it, might as well read it for SE.
>>
>> A few questions to start:
>>
>> 1. The Day bridgeheads are titlecased, the Story bridgeheads are all
>> caps (both transcriptions and scans; you can see them using the first
>> link in #2 below). Would you prefer the story bridgeheads be changed
>> to titlecase as well, or both to be changed to normal case, or…? Since
>> we italicize our bridgeheads, I don’t think it makes sense to leave
>> them caps, even small ones, and to do that I’d still have to titlecase
>> the text. If titlecased, do you want me to leave the Day bridgeheads
>> as is, or run them through se titlecase?
>>
>> 2. There are ten days, ten stories for each day. That’s a fairly
>> pedestrian two-level structure, except each of the days has text
>> associated with it. Sometimes it’s a paragraph (Day 2), sometimes it’s
>> 7500 words (Day 1). The scans label that text “Introduction” so that
>> each Day has an Introduction and then Story 1-10. I’m not sure we can
>> have ten introductions, and even if so, I’m not sure what to name the
>> file (day-1-introduction.xhtml, day-2-introduction.xhtml, etc.?). Keep
>> it as Introduction, or call it something else? (See here

>> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/254/mode/2up> for
>> a long one, here
>> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/102/mode/2up> for

>> a short one.)
>>
>> 3. As the transcription makes note of, the printed book does not
>> follow the normal convention of starting each paragraph of continued
>> speech with an opening double-quote (maybe because most of the book is
>> being spoken, so they’d be all over the place?). The transcription
>> respected that as well, i.e. did not add opening quotes on each
>> paragraph. Is it OK for our production to respect it as well?
>> (Internal quotes within the stories do switch to single-quotes, so it

>> /acts/ like the double-quotes are present, but it only puts them on

>> the first paragraph of someone starting to speak.)
>>
>> 4. One of the stories has some content that offended the sensibilities
>> of translators prior to the late 20th century, so almost all of them
>> left the section untranslated, i.e. left it in Italian. Payne did that
>> for the translation SE’s pointing to, and the transcription has

>> Italian for those few paragraphs. However, the transcription /also/

>> has an English version of those paragraphs from a different
>> translation (the Rigg translation that’s also on PG). Here’s

>> <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23700/23700-h/23700-h.htm#THE_TENTH_STORY3> a

>> link to the story in the transcription; scroll down just slightly to
>> see the note and the Rigg translation. How would you like this handled
>> in our production?
>>
>> a. Include the Rigg translation without comment (removing the Italian)?
>> b. Include the Rigg translation but put an endnote or something on it
>> to note that it’s from a different translation (still removing the
>> Italian)?
>> c. Leave the Italian without the Rigg translation, i.e. as in the
>> original Payne?
>> d. Do what PG did and leave the Italian but also offer the English?
>> (Could leave the Italian in the text and put the translation in a
>> footnote, or vice-versa.)
>> e. Something else I haven’t thought of?
>>

>> If the answer is /a/ or /b/ or /d/, I assume that means I would need

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/D81A3BAD-C2A1-4211-8248-3DEDFB88DCF3%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/D81A3BAD-C2A1-4211-8248-3DEDFB88DCF3%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Vince

unread,

Aug 16, 2020, 6:31:10 PM8/16/20

to Standard Ebooks

You can pick any of the stories to look at (I sent links earlier), but here’s the first one. The opening quote isn’t closed until the last paragraph of the story. The other 99 are the same way; the entire story of a character has opening and closing quotes, but not the paragraphs within it.

I’m guessing the unique thing about the work is that each novel/story is someone speaking to the group. There’s no (little?) dialog between the characters, it’s just someone telling a story. As such, there’s no gain from quotes, and they clutter up the text for no reason. Other editions don’t use quoting for the main speakers at all: neither Rigg’s translation (the other one available on PG) or the copy I have here (an Easton Press edition that uses the first English translation from 1620) have the opening and closing story quotes, either.

Dialog within the stories is quoted normally. Payne starts with single quotes, since he has doubles around the entire story; Rigg (and my edition) starts with double, since there are no quotes around the story.

If we’re not going to match the source, I’d rather get rid of the opening/closing quotes, too. It’s obvious that each novel/story is someone speaking (it’s the whole premise of the book), and quotes aren’t necessary to see who’s speaking, because each story is told by a single person to the group. If we did that, then I would first get rid of the quotes surrounding the stories, then use british2american (and the associated cleanup) to turn the internal-to-the-stories dialog into American style, i.e. starting with double-quotes like Rigg.

I also have a couple of endnote questions.

There are two endnote references in a chapter that both refer to the same endnote. If I recall, our build process doesn’t like that, I don’t remember why. What do we do in that situation?
There are multiple instances where a note refers to another note, usually obliquely (“See ante p. 8 note”). In the book, obviously, you’re meant to read the note text on that page. In the PG, the “p. 8” is a link back to the page# link, on which the note being referred to exists (there are multiple notes on that page, so this doesn’t work very well). Should I convert that to “See note X.” or “See endnote X.", where X is the note number being referred to? And if so, should that be a link to the note (I don’t think that’s going to work in any ereader, just like endnotes in an endnote don’t) or just the text?

Vince

unread,

Aug 16, 2020, 11:18:59 PM8/16/20

to Standard Ebooks

More on endnote #2—there are a few places in the endnotes where it refers to pages of a story, not to another note. For example, “Boccaccio here misquotes himself. See ante, p. 84, where the lady says to her lover…” Payne is referring them to a previous page where someone said something. In this example, the page is actually just a few pages prior in the same story; in other cases, the page is in another story, on another day entirely.

We obviously don’t have page numbers, nor page number links. Do we want to say “refer to day X story Y”, or put a span with an ID in the appropriate and link to it, or…? (The latter isn’t going to work any better than any others links in an endnote; they’ll have a link, but they won’t be able to use it, so even if we do that, it would probably be helpful to refer to the day/story.)

Vince

unread,

Aug 16, 2020, 11:39:01 PM8/16/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

More on endnote issue #1. What the build doesn’t like is having the same noteref, not the same reference to an endnote. So note X and note Y can both refer to the same endnote, they just have to have different noterefs. This means that the backlink has to go to one or the other. In this case (the only instance in the book), that’s NBD, because the refs are in the same sentence; the backlink can go to the first one. For now, just to experiment, I labeled them noteref-143a and noteref-143b, since they’re both pointing to note-143. So we can do this, I just don’t know if you want to do this, and if not, what you would rather do instead.

To summarize:

We have one instance of two noterefs pointing to the same note.
We have multiple instances of notes pointing to other notes.
We have multiple instances of notes pointing to particular pages (passages) in stories, sometimes earlier in the same story, sometimes in other stories on other days.

And, we know links in endnotes don’t work in any known e-reader. (Yes, we may not care, just noting it for the record.)

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/AA4C7131-FD64-48CE-82EC-66B6BE2AE7F5%40letterboxes.org.

Vince

unread,

Aug 17, 2020, 1:16:34 PM8/17/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Found this for the cover, CC0 here. It’s illustrating a scene from Novel/Story 1, Day 4.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ACBE68FC-390D-4FB6-9A42-47D14A5267A0%40letterboxes.org.

Alex Cabal

unread,

Aug 17, 2020, 7:03:09 PM8/17/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

We have to keep the opening/closing quotes because at least the end of
page 55 the story ends and so do the quotes, but the narrative voice
continues unquoted in the same sentence. Let's just leave them as they
are in print.

You can convert references like "see the note on page X" to "see note X"
and link directly to the note. Obviously there are no pages in an ebook
so page numbers are meaningless.

For two endnotes pointing to the same thing, I would do the first one as
normal, then the next one can just say "see note X".

On 8/16/20 5:31 PM, Vince wrote:
> You can pick any of the stories to look at (I sent links earlier), but
> here’s the first one

> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/38/mode/2up>.

> The opening quote isn’t closed until the last paragraph of the story.
> The other 99 are the same way; the entire story of a character has
> opening and closing quotes, but not the paragraphs within it.
>
> I’m guessing the unique thing about the work is that each novel/story is
> someone speaking to the group. There’s no (little?) dialog between the
> characters, it’s just someone telling a story. As such, there’s no gain
> from quotes, and they clutter up the text for no reason. Other editions
> don’t use quoting for the main speakers at all: neither Rigg’s
> translation (the other one available on PG) or the copy I have here (an
> Easton Press edition that uses the first English translation from 1620)
> have the opening and closing story quotes, either.
>

> Dialog /within/ the stories is quoted normally. Payne starts with single

> quotes, since he has doubles around the entire story; Rigg (and my
> edition) starts with double, since there are no quotes around the story.
>
> If we’re not going to match the source, I’d rather get rid of the
> opening/closing quotes, too. It’s obvious that each novel/story is
> someone speaking (it’s the whole premise of the book), and quotes aren’t
> necessary to see who’s speaking, because each story is told by a single
> person to the group. If we did that, then I would first get rid of the
> quotes surrounding the stories, then use british2american (and the
> associated cleanup) to turn the internal-to-the-stories dialog into
> American style, i.e. starting with double-quotes like Rigg.
>
>
> I also have a couple of endnote questions.
>

> 1. There are two endnote references in a chapter that both refer to the

> same endnote. If I recall, our build process doesn’t like that, I
> don’t remember why. What do we do in that situation?

> 2. There are multiple instances where a note refers to another note,

> usually obliquely (“See ante p. 8 note”). In the book, obviously,
> you’re meant to read the note text on that page. In the PG, the “p.
> 8” is a link back to the page# link, on which the note being
> referred to exists (there are multiple notes on that page, so this
> doesn’t work very well). Should I convert that to “See note X.” or
> “See endnote X.", where X is the note number being referred to? And
> if so, should that be a link to the note (I don’t think that’s going
> to work in any ereader, just like endnotes in an endnote don’t) or
> just the text?
>
>
>
>>> 3. As the transcription makes note of, the printed book does not follow
>>> the normal convention of starting each paragraph of continued speech
>>> with an opening double-quote (maybe because most of the book is being
>>> spoken, so they’d be all over the place?). The transcription respected
>>> that as well, i.e. did not add opening quotes on each paragraph. Is it
>>> OK for our production to respect it as well? (Internal quotes within the
>>> stories do switch to single-quotes, so it /acts/ like the double-quotes
>>> are present, but it only puts them on the first paragraph of someone
>>> starting to speak.)
>>
>> I think I have to see an example to decide. If it's like regular prose
>> then we should add those quotes in. There should be something unique or
>> unusual about the work as a whole to justify not including them.
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com

> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.

> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/EA9210C8-580D-4F59-803D-DC1E9BDD6790%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/EA9210C8-580D-4F59-803D-DC1E9BDD6790%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Alex Cabal

unread,

Aug 17, 2020, 7:03:44 PM8/17/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

You can put an ID on the p tag it's referring to and link directly to
that. You can change the text to read "see here".

On 8/16/20 10:18 PM, Vince wrote:
> More on endnote #2—there are a few places in the endnotes where it
> refers to pages of a story, not to another note. For example

> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova03bocc/page/94/mode/2up>,

> “Boccaccio here misquotes himself. See ante, p. 84, where the lady says
> to her lover…” Payne is referring them to a previous page where someone
> said something. In this example, the page is actually just a few pages
> prior in the same story; in other cases, the page is in another story,
> on another day entirely.
>
> We obviously don’t have page numbers, nor page number links. Do we want
> to say “refer to day X story Y”, or put a span with an ID in the
> appropriate and link to it, or…? (The latter isn’t going to work any
> better than any others links in an endnote; they’ll have a link, but
> they won’t be able to use it, so even if we do that, it would probably
> be helpful to refer to the day/story.)
>
>
>> On Aug 16, 2020, at 5:31 PM, Vince <al...@letterboxes.org

>> <mailto:al...@letterboxes.org>> wrote:
>>
>> You can pick any of the stories to look at (I sent links earlier), but
>> here’s the first one

>> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/38/mode/2up>.

>> The opening quote isn’t closed until the last paragraph of the story.
>> The other 99 are the same way; the entire story of a character has
>> opening and closing quotes, but not the paragraphs within it.
>>
>> I’m guessing the unique thing about the work is that each novel/story
>> is someone speaking to the group. There’s no (little?) dialog between
>> the characters, it’s just someone telling a story. As such, there’s no
>> gain from quotes, and they clutter up the text for no reason. Other
>> editions don’t use quoting for the main speakers at all: neither
>> Rigg’s translation (the other one available on PG) or the copy I have
>> here (an Easton Press edition that uses the first English translation
>> from 1620) have the opening and closing story quotes, either.
>>

>> Dialog /within/ the stories is quoted normally. Payne starts with

>> single quotes, since he has doubles around the entire story; Rigg (and
>> my edition) starts with double, since there are no quotes around the
>> story.
>>
>> If we’re not going to match the source, I’d rather get rid of the
>> opening/closing quotes, too. It’s obvious that each novel/story is
>> someone speaking (it’s the whole premise of the book), and quotes
>> aren’t necessary to see who’s speaking, because each story is told by
>> a single person to the group. If we did that, then I would first get
>> rid of the quotes surrounding the stories, then use british2american
>> (and the associated cleanup) to turn the internal-to-the-stories
>> dialog into American style, i.e. starting with double-quotes like Rigg.
>>
>>
>> I also have a couple of endnote questions.
>>

>> 1. There are two endnote references in a chapter that both refer to

>> the same endnote. If I recall, our build process doesn’t like
>> that, I don’t remember why. What do we do in that situation?

>> 2. There are multiple instances where a note refers to another note,

>> usually obliquely (“See ante p. 8 note”). In the book, obviously,
>> you’re meant to read the note text on that page. In the PG, the
>> “p. 8” is a link back to the page# link, on which the note being
>> referred to exists (there are multiple notes on that page, so this
>> doesn’t work very well). Should I convert that to “See note X.” or
>> “See endnote X.", where X is the note number being referred to?
>> And if so, should that be a link to the note (I don’t think that’s
>> going to work in any ereader, just like endnotes in an endnote
>> don’t) or just the text?
>>
>>
>>
>>>> 3. As the transcription makes note of, the printed book does not follow
>>>> the normal convention of starting each paragraph of continued speech
>>>> with an opening double-quote (maybe because most of the book is being
>>>> spoken, so they’d be all over the place?). The transcription respected
>>>> that as well, i.e. did not add opening quotes on each paragraph. Is it
>>>> OK for our production to respect it as well? (Internal quotes within the
>>>> stories do switch to single-quotes, so it /acts/ like the double-quotes
>>>> are present, but it only puts them on the first paragraph of someone
>>>> starting to speak.)
>>>
>>> I think I have to see an example to decide. If it's like regular prose
>>> then we should add those quotes in. There should be something unique or
>>> unusual about the work as a whole to justify not including them.
>>
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/AA4C7131-FD64-48CE-82EC-66B6BE2AE7F5%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/AA4C7131-FD64-48CE-82EC-66B6BE2AE7F5%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Alex Cabal

unread,

Aug 17, 2020, 7:05:48 PM8/17/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Looks good@

On 8/17/20 12:16 PM, Vince wrote:
> Found this for the cover, CC0 here

> <http://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=9562>.

> It’s illustrating a scene from Novel/Story 1, Day 4.
>
>
>

>> On Aug 16, 2020, at 10:38 PM, Vince <al...@letterboxes.org

>> <mailto:al...@letterboxes.org>> wrote:
>>
>> More on endnote issue #1. What the build doesn’t like is having the
>> same noteref, not the same reference to an endnote. So note X and note
>> Y can both refer to the same endnote, they just have to have different
>> noterefs. This means that the backlink has to go to one or the other.
>> In this case (the only instance in the book), that’s NBD, because the
>> refs are in the same sentence; the backlink can go to the first one.
>> For now, just to experiment, I labeled them noteref-143a and

>> noteref-143b, since they’re both pointing to note-143. So we /can/ do
>> this, I just don’t know if you /want/ to do this, and if not, what you

>> would rather do instead.
>>
>> To summarize:
>>

>> * We have one instance of two noterefs pointing to the same note.
>> * We have multiple instances of notes pointing to other notes.
>> * We have multiple instances of notes pointing to particular pages

>> (passages) in stories, sometimes earlier in the same story,
>> sometimes in other stories on other days.
>>
>>
>> And, we know links in endnotes don’t work in any known e-reader. (Yes,
>> we may not care, just noting it for the record.)
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 16, 2020, at 10:18 PM, Vince <al...@letterboxes.org

>>> <mailto:al...@letterboxes.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> More on endnote #2—there are a few places in the endnotes where it
>>> refers to pages of a story, not to another note. For example

>>> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova03bocc/page/94/mode/2up>, “Boccaccio

>>> here misquotes himself. See ante, p. 84, where the lady says to her
>>> lover…” Payne is referring them to a previous page where someone said
>>> something. In this example, the page is actually just a few pages
>>> prior in the same story; in other cases, the page is in another
>>> story, on another day entirely.
>>>
>>> We obviously don’t have page numbers, nor page number links. Do we
>>> want to say “refer to day X story Y”, or put a span with an ID in the
>>> appropriate and link to it, or…? (The latter isn’t going to work any
>>> better than any others links in an endnote; they’ll have a link, but
>>> they won’t be able to use it, so even if we do that, it would
>>> probably be helpful to refer to the day/story.)
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Aug 16, 2020, at 5:31 PM, Vince <al...@letterboxes.org

>>>> <mailto:al...@letterboxes.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You can pick any of the stories to look at (I sent links earlier),
>>>> but here’s the first one

>>>> <https://archive.org/details/decameronofgiova01bocc_0/page/38/mode/2up>.

>>>> The opening quote isn’t closed until the last paragraph of the
>>>> story. The other 99 are the same way; the entire story of a
>>>> character has opening and closing quotes, but not the paragraphs
>>>> within it.
>>>>
>>>> I’m guessing the unique thing about the work is that each
>>>> novel/story is someone speaking to the group. There’s no (little?)
>>>> dialog between the characters, it’s just someone telling a story. As
>>>> such, there’s no gain from quotes, and they clutter up the text for
>>>> no reason. Other editions don’t use quoting for the main speakers at
>>>> all: neither Rigg’s translation (the other one available on PG) or
>>>> the copy I have here (an Easton Press edition that uses the first
>>>> English translation from 1620) have the opening and closing story
>>>> quotes, either.
>>>>

>>>> Dialog /within/ the stories is quoted normally. Payne starts with

>>>> single quotes, since he has doubles around the entire story; Rigg
>>>> (and my edition) starts with double, since there are no quotes
>>>> around the story.
>>>>
>>>> If we’re not going to match the source, I’d rather get rid of the
>>>> opening/closing quotes, too. It’s obvious that each novel/story is
>>>> someone speaking (it’s the whole premise of the book), and quotes
>>>> aren’t necessary to see who’s speaking, because each story is told
>>>> by a single person to the group. If we did that, then I would first
>>>> get rid of the quotes surrounding the stories, then use
>>>> british2american (and the associated cleanup) to turn the
>>>> internal-to-the-stories dialog into American style, i.e. starting
>>>> with double-quotes like Rigg.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I also have a couple of endnote questions.
>>>>

>>>> 1. There are two endnote references in a chapter that both refer to

>>>> the same endnote. If I recall, our build process doesn’t like
>>>> that, I don’t remember why. What do we do in that situation?

>>>> 2. There are multiple instances where a note refers to another

>>> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.

>>> To view this discussion on the web
>>> visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/AA4C7131-FD64-48CE-82EC-66B6BE2AE7F5%40letterboxes.org

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/AA4C7131-FD64-48CE-82EC-66B6BE2AE7F5%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com

>> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.

>> To view this discussion on the web visit

>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ACBE68FC-390D-4FB6-9A42-47D14A5267A0%40letterboxes.org
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/ACBE68FC-390D-4FB6-9A42-47D14A5267A0%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com

> <mailto:standardebook...@googlegroups.com>.

> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/BFD3A438-6283-4716-B172-EF761E3866E2%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/BFD3A438-6283-4716-B172-EF761E3866E2%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Vince

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 1:37:45 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

The letter section of the manual says that letter dates should be wrapped in a <time> element. Does that apply to dates in general, or just letter dates?

I have some dates in the endnotes, I’m just checking to see if I need to do anything with them.

Also, in case I do need to tag them, the manual says “computer readable date,” but doesn’t specify what that means. The one example given is in YYYY-MM-DD, i.e. ISO 8601. Is that the format we always want it in, or was that just an example of a “computer readable date”?

Vince

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 6:04:40 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

A couple more endnote questions.

There are five instances of “See ante, passim.” always at the end of a note where there is other information. As I understand it, that means “see in several places prior to here”. Since it’s not referring to a particular note or page (or even whether it means notes or pages), but rather to multiple unnamed places, it seems to me to be just as valid in an ebook as in a regular book, so I’m inclined to leave them. Thoughts?

There are two instances of “See post.” I’m not sure what that means (I’ve tried a few web searches unsuccessfully); at a guess it’s the opposite of “See ante,” i.e. something like “See later”. Either way, I don’t know what it’s referring to, and it’s again an unnamed place, so isn’t impacted by the fact it’s an ebook. OK to leave them as well?

Last, he starts several endnotes with “i.e. <meaning>”, with a lowercase i. Do we want endnotes to be sentence-cased, i.e. should I change that to a capital I “I.e. <meaning>”, or leave them as is?

David Grigg

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 7:47:31 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

I almost always put dates within a time tag. In the case of some books (eg. Grant's Personal Memoirs) that was many hundreds of dates. I think it's worthwhile for all sorts of reasons. The format is datetime="YYYY-MM-DD" if you know the year, month and day, "YYYY-MM" if you don't know the day, "MM-DD" if you just have the month and day, "MM" if you just have the month (but if the author just mentions the month after making it clear which year he or she is talking about, you should include the year too).

You can also include the time of day if that is known and important -- quite a few times I did this in Grant's Memoirs.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/6C826518-0A51-47F4-AB05-CFCE67F0E1AD%40letterboxes.org.

Vince

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 7:55:07 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

There are bracket asides as well as parenthetical asides. The bracketed ones look like they’re perhaps translator “helps” rather than original. If so, do we want to leave them bracketed to differentiate them?

For example, see here (partial picture below), nine lines from the bottom, the sentence beginning, “And who will deny…”. There are two bracketed words in that sentence, and both look like they’re clarifying the meaning vs being original. Meanwhile, there’s also a parenthetical remark in the next sentence, “(which those who have proved…)”, which clearly is original.

Vince

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 7:59:30 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

First, I nominate that paragraph go in the manual, starting from “The format is…”.

Second, the right answer here was, “No, that’s only for letter dates, don’t worry about the others.” lol

That’s what I suspected, I’ll do that, I definitely don’t have many hundred.

Thanks, David!

David Grigg

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 8:15:16 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Of course, being me, when I was only a few pages into Grant I took time aside to write some code (a kludge of Swift plus Keyboard Maestro) to automate tagging dates! Happy to share, but as I say it's a bit of a kludge.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/60764BD9-AEE5-4315-AEB1-5B4F6715965A%40letterboxes.org.

Vince

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 8:25:02 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Thanks very much, but I really only have a handful. It’s NBD at all. But I am going to make sure I never work on a history book for SE… :)

David Grigg

unread,

Aug 18, 2020, 8:39:32 PM8/18/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Ha! I’m currently in the midst of Lytton Strachey’s “Queen Victoria”, which I started as a ‘break’ from Clarissa because I thought it would be quick and easy. Ooops...

Jacob Heybey

unread,

Aug 19, 2020, 6:21:27 PM8/19/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com

Vince, I've come across much the same thing in Sun Tzu, where the endnotes are littered with "see infra", "see post", "ad init", etc. I left them all in. Since Merriam Webster defined "infra" and "post" as prefixes derived from Latin (not English words in their own right), I chose to treat them as Latinisms not found in a modern dictionary:

see post

Alex can correct me if I have this wrong, of course.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Standard Ebooks" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to standardebook...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/de35f5f0-c21d-4784-8d13-e8f655220907%40Spark.

--

Sincerely,

Jacob Heybey

Vince Rice

unread,

Aug 19, 2020, 6:35:35 PM8/19/20

to Standard Ebooks

Thanks, Jacob. That was actually my next question if they were staying — do we italicize abbreviations of foreign words. :)

I have one I haven’t been able to figure out — “met.”

Filostrato, Greek φίλος, loving, and στρατὸς army, met. strife, war,

Aug 19, 2020, 10:19:14 PM8/19/20

to Standard Ebooks

Yes, they look like editorial additions for clarity to me. I think I'll leave them; not every story has them, and with a couple of exceptions the ones that do usually just have two or three.

Vince

unread,

Aug 19, 2020, 10:26:27 PM8/19/20

to Standard Ebooks

There are two instances of “See post.” I’m not sure what that means
(I’ve tried a few web searches unsuccessfully); at a guess it’s the
opposite of “See ante,” i.e. something like “See later”. Either way, I
don’t know what it’s referring to, and it’s again an unnamed place, so
isn’t impacted by the fact it’s an ebook. OK to leave them as well?

"Post" means "after" so it must mean "see the next endnote"

That's what I thought at first as well, but in neither case does the next endnote have anything to do with the subject at hand. He uses "See ante" quite a bit as well (not always with passim), but he uses it as "before now" generically, not "the prior note" specifically. As near as I can tell, the two uses of post are as "see later in the story."

David

unread,

Aug 21, 2020, 7:06:27 AM8/21/20

to Standard Ebooks

In my Cassell's Latin Dictionary, "met." is glossed in the abbreviations list as "metaphorically". (See screenshot, attached.) As far as I know, it persists in current editions of that work, too. It's also in Smith's Smaller Latin English Dictionary:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.509983/page/n13/mode/1up

Could be it?

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8C745C58-3C28-4A3C-B9AC-E7B05D812958%40letterboxes.org
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/8C745C58-3C28-4A3C-B9AC-E7B05D812958%40letterboxes.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

Alex Cabal

unread,

Oct 5, 2020, 3:55:01 PM10/5/20

to standar...@googlegroups.com, David Grigg

David just wanted to make sure you saw this. Can you review this?

David Grigg

unread,

Reply to author

Forward