[Next Project] With the Empress Dowager of China

[Weijia Cheng]

PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75210

IA: https://archive.org/details/withempressdowag00carliala

The book contains a reproduction of Carl's portrait which can be used for the cover art: https://standardebooks.org/artworks/katharine-a-carl/the-empress-dowager-tze-hsi-of-china

[Alex Cabal]

OK, sure. Send a repo link once you start.

For the cover art upload, we can only include the actual oil painting,
and not framing material or backdrops. Can you re-upload a scan of just
the oil painting?

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[Weijia Cheng]

It occured to me shortly after the upload that it could be a problem. I cropped the image to the actual painting portion.

[Weijia Cheng]

https://github.com/weijia-cheng/katharine-a-carl_with-the-empress-dowager-of-china

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Vince will manage with Lukas reviewing.

On 3/14/26 8:28 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks wrote:
> https://github.com/weijia-cheng/katharine-a-carl_with-the-empress-
> dowager-of-china

>
> On Friday, March 13, 2026 at 7:50:42 PM UTC-4 Weijia Cheng wrote:
>
> It occured to me shortly after the upload that it could be a
> problem. I cropped the image to the actual painting portion.
>
> On Friday, March 13, 2026 at 6:45:27 PM UTC-4 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK, sure. Send a repo link once you start.
>
> For the cover art upload, we can only include the actual oil
> painting,
> and not framing material or backdrops. Can you re-upload a scan
> of just
> the oil painting?
>
> On 3/13/26 5:42 PM, 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard Ebooks wrote:

> > PG: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75210 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75210>
> > IA: https://archive.org/details/withempressdowag00carliala

> <https://archive.org/details/withempressdowag00carliala>
> >
> > The book contains a reproduction of Carl's portrait which can
> be used
> > for the cover art: https://standardebooks.org/artworks/

> katharine-a-carl/ <https://standardebooks.org/artworks/
> katharine-a-carl/>

> > the-empress-dowager-tze-hsi-of-china
> >
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[Weijia Cheng]

One of the somewhat annoying aspects of this book is that Carl uses a lot of scare quotes. She seems to love using them for French loanwords, as you see in "bouquet" on this page. In other cases she uses them for French phrases, like "objets de virtu" on this page. But she also uses scare quotes for ordinary English words like "charm" on this page and I am struggling with how I might cut down on her usage of scare quotes without undermining the cases where her scare quotes might actually be significant. I am thinking of doing it this way:

1. Italicize foreign words and phrases not in Merriam-Webster and remove scare quotes around them

2. Remove scare quotes around loanwords found in Merriam-Webster (separate commit)

3. Leave scare quotes around non-loanword English words and phrases

Does this approach seem reasonable?

[Vince]

Non-English words that are quoted can certainly have them removed when italicizing them; that’s our normal practice.

For the loanwords, I would look at a couple of things if I was doing it:

1. Are non-English words/phrases ever italicized, or is it consistent about quoting them?
2. Is the same word used elsewhere where it’s unquoted?

If either/both are no, then that makes it more likely the quotes aren’t needed for the loanwords. If either is yes, then the decision should probably be made on context.

For the non-loanwords, context again matters. If they’re being used ironically or as a call out, then they should stay. If they’re not, then they can go.

[Weijia Cheng]

Thanks, that's helpful! For the first question, I think there was one instance in the printed book where she italicized a non-English word or phrase (now a loanword in Merriam-Webster), "à la Russe." Otherwise everything was in quotes. For the second question, usually the loanwords are quoted consistently.

I'm now leaning towards the idea that in most of these cases, Carl is using quotes as we would use italics today. When I make the final commits, I'll bracket my changes into different commits based on my level of confidence to make it easier to review and modify.

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, this is ready for review: https://github.com/weijia-cheng/katharine-a-carl_with-the-empress-dowager-of-china

As mentioned above, I revised Carl's use of scare quotes. I removed scare quoutes around foreign words, proper names, and loanwords, all in separate commits. I also removed some of her scare quotes around normal usages of English words and left scare quotes in places where I thought they were meaningful. You can see how I did it in the commit history.

[Lukas Bystricky]

Sounds good. I'll get to this in the next couple of days. 

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[Lukas Bystricky]

Typical great work Weijia. Just a couple small things to look at. 

[Weijia Cheng]

Thanks! Those should be taken care of now.

[Lukas Bystricky]

Ok Alex, this is ready for you. 

[Alex Cabal]

Great work as always Weijia, I've released it. Thanks!

On 4/8/26 12:20 AM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> Ok Alex, this is ready for you.
>
> On Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 12:19:24 AM UTC+2 weij...@bu.edu wrote:
>
> Thanks! Those should be taken care of now.
>
> On Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 5:30:58 PM UTC-4 lukasby...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> Typical great work Weijia. Just a couple small things to look at.
>
> On Monday, April 6, 2026 at 5:56:13 PM UTC+2 Lukas Bystricky wrote:
>
> Sounds good. I'll get to this in the next couple of days.
>
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2026, 13:59 'Weijia Cheng' via Standard
> Ebooks <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Ok, this is ready for review: https://github.com/weijia-
> cheng/katharine-a-carl_with-the-empress-dowager-of-china

> <https://github.com/weijia-cheng/katharine-a-carl_with-
> the-empress-dowager-of-china>

> 1. Are non-English words/phrases ever

> italicized, or is it consistent about
> quoting them?

> 2. Is the same word used elsewhere where

> it’s unquoted?
>
> If either/both are no, then that makes it more
> likely the quotes aren’t needed for the
> loanwords. If either is yes, then the decision
> should probably be made on context.
>
> For the non-loanwords, context again matters. If
> they’re being used ironically or as a call out,
> then they should stay. If they’re not, then they
> can go.
>
>
>> On Mar 25, 2026, at 9:34 PM, 'Weijia Cheng'
>> via Standard Ebooks
>> <standar...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> One of the somewhat annoying aspects of this
>> book is that Carl uses a lot of scare quotes.
>> She seems to love using them for French
>> loanwords, as you see in "bouquet" on this

>> page <https://archive.org/details/
>> withempressdowag00carliala/page/22/mode/2up>.

>> In other cases she uses them for French
>> phrases, like "objets de virtu" on this page

>> <https://archive.org/details/
>> withempressdowag00carliala/page/36/mode/2up>.

>> But she also uses scare quotes for ordinary
>> English words like "charm" on this page

>> <https://archive.org/details/
>> withempressdowag00carliala/page/64/
>> mode/2up> and I am struggling with how I might

>> cut down on her usage of scare quotes without
>> undermining the cases where her scare quotes
>> might actually be significant. I am thinking
>> of doing it this way:
>>
>> 1. Italicize foreign words and phrases not in
>> Merriam-Webster and remove scare quotes around
>> them
>> 2. Remove scare quotes around loanwords found
>> in Merriam-Webster (separate commit)
>> 3. Leave scare quotes around non-loanword
>> English words and phrases
>>
>> Does this approach seem reasonable?
>
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