[Next Project] The City of God by Augustine of Hippo (trans. Marcus Dods)

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello all,

For my next project, I feel like doing something longer, so I'd like to do The City of God by Augustine of Hippo. (Rather than "Augustine" or "St. Augustine," I'll go with what the placeholder already has.) Also, to make the references easier to understand, I'll be expanding the abbreviated references in the footnotes.

Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304

Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305

Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up

Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up

Thanks,

Devin

[Kara Reddy]

godspeed homie

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Kara Reddy

Freelance Animator/Artist

kara.r...@gmail.com

[Alex Cabal]

OK, But I don't think your scans of vol 2 match. They're published by
John Grant and have a different translator. Vol 1 is published by T & T
Clark and apparently has at least 3 translators.

If John Healy translated a different edition, we want to see which
translation is better. Are there any other translations?

There is typically some scholarly consensus on which translation is
better, or at least which ones are bad, for works this old.

On 10/12/25 2:02 PM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> For my next project, I feel like doing something longer, so I'd like to

> do /The City of God /by Augustine of Hippo. (Rather than "Augustine" or
> "St. Augustine," I'll go with what the placeholder <https://
> standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-god> already

> has.) Also, to make the references easier to understand, I'll be
> expanding the abbreviated references in the footnotes.
>

> Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304>
> Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305>

>
> Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/

> cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up <https://archive.org/
> details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up>

> Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/

> cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up <https://archive.org/
> details/cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up>

>
> Thanks,
>
> Devin
>
> --
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> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/
> d22ee285-4c9b-42fe-9c33-87d5dbf60f45n%40googlegroups.com?
> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Devin O'Bannon]

Yikes, I pasted the wrong link! (I had to switch from one scan to another for volume 2 and accidentally clicked the wrong link.) The correct scans for volume two are in the link below.

And yes, you're correct, I misspoke. Marcus Dods was the principal translator, but not the only one. 

As far as translations go, there's only two in English that are in the public domain: John Healey (which was done in the 1600s) and the Marcus Dods et al. translation (done in the 1800s). As far as reviews of those translations, I've found this one, which says that he thought Healey's was more accurate on the whole, but that Dods was satisfactory and much easier to read for modern-day readers than Healey's. However, Marcus Dods, in the first volume of the translation I've linked to above, called John Healey's "unaccountably bad." I haven't been able to find any other reviews to "break the tie," as it were. But it seems that the Marcus Dods et al one is fine.

The best translations into English are currently not in the public domain (and were published in the 1970s and later). All the other translation reviews I've been able to find were for non-PD ones.

So if you're okay with this, then I'll move forward.

Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304

Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305

Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up

Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/mode/2up

Thanks,

Devin

[Alex Cabal]

OK, that sounds fine. Looks like this will be a top tier difficulty book
with almost 1000 print pages and 1400 endnotes. Send a repo link once
you start. Good luck!

On 10/12/25 9:28 PM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> Yikes, I pasted the wrong link! (I had to switch from one scan to
> another for volume 2 and accidentally clicked the wrong link.) The
> correct scans for volume two are in the link below.
>
> And yes, you're correct, I misspoke. Marcus Dods was the principal
> translator, but not the only one.
>
> As far as translations go, there's only two in English that are in the
> public domain: John Healey (which was done in the 1600s) and the Marcus
> Dods et al. translation (done in the 1800s). As far as reviews of those

> translations, I've found this one <https://www.jstor.org/
> stable/2854495>, which says that he thought Healey's was more accurate

> on the whole, but that Dods was satisfactory and much easier to read for
> modern-day readers than Healey's. However, Marcus Dods, in the first
> volume of the translation I've linked to above, called John Healey's
> "unaccountably bad." I haven't been able to find any other reviews to
> "break the tie," as it were. But it seems that the Marcus Dods et al one
> is fine.
>
> The best translations into English are currently not in the public
> domain (and were published in the 1970s and later). All the other
> translation reviews I've been able to find were for non-PD ones.
>
> So if you're okay with this, then I'll move forward.
>

> Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304>
> Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305>
>
> Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/
> cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up <https://archive.org/
> details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up>

> Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/
> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/mode/2up>

>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Devin
>
> On Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 6:22:56 PM UTC-5 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK, But I don't think your scans of vol 2 match. They're published by
> John Grant and have a different translator. Vol 1 is published by T & T
> Clark and apparently has at least 3 translators.
>
> If John Healy translated a different edition, we want to see which
> translation is better. Are there any other translations?
>
> There is typically some scholarly consensus on which translation is
> better, or at least which ones are bad, for works this old.
>
>
> On 10/12/25 2:02 PM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > For my next project, I feel like doing something longer, so I'd
> like to
> > do /The City of God /by Augustine of Hippo. (Rather than
> "Augustine" or
> > "St. Augustine," I'll go with what the placeholder <https://
> > standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-god

> <http://standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-

> god>> already
> > has.) Also, to make the references easier to understand, I'll be
> > expanding the abbreviated references in the footnotes.
> >
> > Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304

> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304> <https://
> > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <http://www.gutenberg.org/

> ebooks/45304>>
> > Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305> <https://

> > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <http://www.gutenberg.org/
> ebooks/45305>>
> >
> > Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/ <https://
> archive.org/details/>
> > cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up <https://archive.org/
> <https://archive.org/>
> > details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up>
> > Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/ <https://
> archive.org/details/>
> > cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up <https://archive.org/

> <https://archive.org/>
> > details/cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up>
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Devin
> >
> > --
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> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
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[Devin O'Bannon]

That's why it sounded like fun!

Repo: https://github.com/Survey0r/augustine-of-hippo_the-city-of-god_marcus-dods_george-wilson_j-j-smith

Since there were only 3 translators, I put all three names in the filename, but if I should replace it with "various translators," let me know.

Thanks,

Devin

[Alex Cabal]

OK, Emma will manage this with Lukas reviewing.

On 10/13/25 8:53 AM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> That's why it sounded like fun!
>
> Repo: https://github.com/Survey0r/augustine-of-hippo_the-city-of-

> god_marcus-dods_george-wilson_j-j-smith <https://github.com/Survey0r/
> augustine-of-hippo_the-city-of-god_marcus-dods_george-wilson_j-j-smith>

> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304> <https://
> > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <http://www.gutenberg.org/
> ebooks/45304>>
> > Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305> <https://
> > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <http://www.gutenberg.org/
> ebooks/45305>>
> >
> > Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/ <https://
> archive.org/details/>
> > cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up <https://archive.org/
> <https://archive.org/>
> > details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up>

> > Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/
> page/n5/ <https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/>
> > mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/

> mode/2up <https://archive.org/details/TheCityOfGodV2/page/n5/mode/2up>>
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Devin
> >
> > On Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 6:22:56 PM UTC-5 Alex Cabal wrote:
> >
> > OK, But I don't think your scans of vol 2 match. They're
> published by
> > John Grant and have a different translator. Vol 1 is published by
> T & T
> > Clark and apparently has at least 3 translators.
> >
> > If John Healy translated a different edition, we want to see which
> > translation is better. Are there any other translations?
> >
> > There is typically some scholarly consensus on which translation is
> > better, or at least which ones are bad, for works this old.
> >
> >
> > On 10/12/25 2:02 PM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > For my next project, I feel like doing something longer, so I'd
> > like to
> > > do /The City of God /by Augustine of Hippo. (Rather than
> > "Augustine" or
> > > "St. Augustine," I'll go with what the placeholder <https://
> > > standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-god
> <http://standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-god>

> > <http://standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of-

> <http://standardebooks.org/ebooks/augustine-of-hippo/the-city-of->
> > god>> already
> > > has.) Also, to make the references easier to understand, I'll be
> > > expanding the abbreviated references in the footnotes.
> > >
> > > Transcription (vol. 1): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304>

> > <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <https://

> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304>> <https://
> > > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304 <http://www.gutenberg.org/

> ebooks/45304> <http://www.gutenberg.org/ <http://www.gutenberg.org/>

> > ebooks/45304>>
> > > Transcription (vol. 2): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305
> <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305>

> > <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <https://

> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305>> <https://
> > > www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45305 <http://www.gutenberg.org/

> ebooks/45305> <http://www.gutenberg.org/ <http://www.gutenberg.org/>

> > ebooks/45305>>
> > >
> > > Page scans (vol. 1): https://archive.org/details/ <https://

> archive.org/details/> <https://
> > archive.org/details/ <http://archive.org/details/>>
> > > cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up <https://
> archive.org/ <https://archive.org/>

> > <https://archive.org/ <https://archive.org/>>
> > > details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/n3/mode/2up>
> > > Page scans (vol. 2): https://archive.org/details/ <https://

> archive.org/details/> <https://
> > archive.org/details/ <http://archive.org/details/>>
> > > cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up <https://
> archive.org/ <https://archive.org/>

> > <https://archive.org/ <https://archive.org/>>
> > > details/cityofgodtransla02auguuoft/page/n5/mode/2up>
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Devin
> > >
> > > --
> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> msgid/ <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>

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> > > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
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[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello Emma,

While I'm working on moving the 20 gajillion footnotes to endnotes, here is my cover proposal, from The Met: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436282

Thanks,

Devin

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello Emma,

One issue I'm running into is bridgehead titles. There are a lot of bridgeheads in this book, but they're generally quite straightforward to code. However, I'm unsure how to program the bridgeheads for the books, since they are titled with "Argument," as seen below. My preference is to do an editorial commit and just delete the word "Argument" from each book's bridgehead, as the text below them clearly indicate that they are bridgeheads for the book. (Which would also make it easier to program.) However, if I should keep in the word "Argument," I'm unsure how to program the book heading with its bridgehead, in that case.

Thanks,

Devin

[Emma Sweeney]

1. The cover looks good! I've added it to the art db.

2. Delete the "Argument" titles and use bridgehead formatting.

Emma

[Devin O'Bannon]

Another question. In the endnotes, sometimes the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) is abbreviated to "LXX" (the Roman numeral for 70, after the 70 translators that made it), which is a common abbreviation for the Septuagint. This is an abbreviation and a Roman numeral, so I'll add semantics for those, but this is also the name of a Bible translation. Does it also have semantics indicating that it's a name, such as 'se:name.publication', or something along those lines?

Thanks,

Devin

[Emma Sweeney]

1. LXX would only have roman numeral semantics.

2. You don't need to have text semantics since Septuagint/LXX wouldn't be italicized.

Emma

[Devin O'Bannon]

OK thanks. I asked because sometimes we still use text semantics for things that aren't italicised (using <span> elements).

Thanks,

Devin

[David]

I wonder if it's worth thinking about this "LXX" issue a little more, even if the original decision is confirmed.

I take Devin's point: in context, "LXX" is not the roman numeral for "70": it is the abbreviation of "Septuagint" (to link just one of a myriad of possible authoritative sources):

My thought is that if we use the semantic `epub:type="z3998:roman"`, it is not conveying the correct semantics for "LXX" = "Septuagint(a)". I think the closest we get for this case is SEMoS §8.10.7: "Abbreviations that are abbreviations of a single word, and that are not acronyms or initialisms (like Mr., Mrs., or lbs.) are set with <abbr>." 

Responses welcome!

David / Fife, UK

On Saturday, 1 November 2025 at 02:27:22 UTC Devin wrote:

OK thanks. I asked because sometimes we still use text semantics for things that aren't italicised (using <span> elements).

Thanks,

Devin

On Friday, October 31, 2025 at 9:18:47 PM UTC-5 Emma Sweeney wrote:

1. LXX would only have roman numeral semantics.

2. You don't need to have text semantics since Septuagint/LXX wouldn't be italicized.

Emma

[Vince]

I had this discussion with Gibbon, and I did not tag it as a roman numeral, for that reason. It is an abbreviation, not the number 70. Of course, I didn’t tag it as an abbreviation, either, so that’s probably wrong…

On Nov 1, 2025, at 12:23 PM, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wonder if it's worth thinking about this "LXX" issue a little more, even if the original decision is confirmed.

I take Devin's point: in context, "LXX" is not the roman numeral for "70": it is the abbreviation of "Septuagint" (to link just one of a myriad of possible authoritative sources):

[Weijia Cheng]

Something else worth noting is that in principle, the semantics indicate how screen readers should pronounce the text. Having only z3998:roman might imply that LXX should be read "seventy" which would be incorrect in context. Could we maybe split the difference somehow? <abbr epub:type="z3998:roman se:name.publication.book">?

[Vince]

We don’t tag Bibles, so the “book” tag wouldn’t be right, would it?

[Weijia Cheng]

Well, we don't italicize Bibles, but that doesn't mean that "Bible" or "Septuagint" isn't the name of a book, right?

[Vince]

If we tag them at all, that’s news to me. I’ve never done it.

[Weijia Cheng]

I agree, we don't tag them usually and we shouldn't. But in this case, if we are tagging LXX with the "abbr" tag anyways, wouldn't adding "se:name.publication.book" clarify what LXX is supposed to be an abbreviation for?

But probably I am just getting too fancy and there is some better solution :)

[Vince]

Well, to me, if we don’t tag Bibles, we don’t tag Bibles. And we have all kinds of untagged abbreviations. (Although lint will complain about this one, so it would require an ignore entry.)

But I’m probably being too simplistic. :)

[David]

This may well be my stupidest idea ever (there are plenty to choose from) but what about:

    <abbr aria-label="Seputagint">LXX</abbr>

If "the semantics indicate how screen readers should pronounce the text" (quoting Weijia, above), then this might be the sensible (ha!) solution. A the moment in the SE corpus, I think this is restricted to use in SVGs.

According to MDN, "The aria-label attribute can be used with regular, semantic HTML elements; it is not limited to elements that have an ARIA role assigned." Now, maybe this is still supposed to be restricted to labelling elements in the DOM, but ... well I did say it was probably a stupid idea....

On Saturday, 1 November 2025 at 19:26:53 UTC Vince wrote:

Well, to me, if we don’t tag Bibles, we don’t tag Bibles. And we have all kinds of untagged abbreviations. (Although lint will complain about this one, so it would require an ignore entry.)

But I’m probably being too simplistic. :)

[Vince]

We don’t have any other abbreviation “say” what the abbreviation stands for (IBM is just IBM, not International Business Machines), so I don’t see why we would here. It’s just an abbreviation, like any other abbreviation. The fact it’s made up of roman numerals is (to me) immaterial. It’s LXX, it’s tagged as an abbreviation, it gets read as el eks eks, which is (again, to me) all that’s needed.

[Alex Cabal]

I agree, it's not a roman numeral, it's an abbreviation, but an unusual
one.

I'm not against adding the @aria-label attribute David suggests. Unlike
IBM, whose pronunciation is hinted by the `initialism` semantic, LXX is
not pronounced in a typical way - prior knowledge is needed - so the
label hint would be useful. Off the top of my head I can't think of any
other common abbreviation that is similar, i.e. pronunciation cannot be
inferred by spelling or z3998 semantics.

On 11/1/25 2:51 PM, Vince wrote:
> We don’t have any other abbreviation “say” what the abbreviation stands
> for (IBM is just IBM, not International Business Machines), so I don’t
> see why we would here. It’s just an abbreviation, like any other
> abbreviation. The fact it’s made up of roman numerals is (to me)
> immaterial. It’s LXX, it’s tagged as an abbreviation, it gets read as el
> eks eks, which is (again, to me) all that’s needed.
>
>
>> On Nov 1, 2025, at 2:35 PM, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This may well be my stupidest idea ever (there are plenty to choose
>> from) but what about:
>>
>>     <abbr aria-label="Seputagint">LXX</abbr>
>>
>> If "the semantics indicate how screen readers should pronounce the
>> text" (quoting Weijia, above), then this might be the sensible (ha!)
>> solution. A the moment in the SE corpus, I think this is restricted to
>> use in SVGs.
>>

>> According to MDN <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/
>> Accessibility/ARIA/Reference/Attributes/aria-label>, "The aria-label

>> attribute can be used with regular, semantic HTML elements; it is not
>> limited to elements that have an ARIA role assigned." Now, maybe this
>> is still supposed to be restricted to labelling elements in the DOM,
>> but ... well I did say it was probably a stupid idea....
>

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[Adam Stone]

Just to add to David Reimer's suggestion, an additional or alternative option to the "aria-label" attribute is the "title" attribute, which is specifically intended to provide an expansion of an abbreviation. It's documented here on the MDN Web Docs. So the markup could be something like:

<abbr title="Septuagint">LXX</abbr>

[Adam Stone]

Also, off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other cases quite like this "LXX" abbreviation, but "lb." and "lbs." are somewhat similar in that their spelling, which is the based on the Latin word for a pound (libra), is not indicative of the conventional English pronunciation.

[Vince]

It’s not really (unusual). Prior knowledge isn’t required to know how it’s pronounced—each letter is pronounced, just like an initialism (which is why it’s like IBM), the letters just don’t stand for anything individually (which is why it’s not, but it doesn’t have anything to do with pronunciation.)

Prior knowledge is required for what it stands for, but that is also true of countless other initialisms in the corpus. I have to web search an abbreviation fairly regularly, especially some of the abbreviations in the 1800’s that are no longer in use or are unique to other countries.

[Lukas Bystricky]

Lots of good points here, so apologies for adding one more, but we do occasionally expand abbreviations. Could this be a solution? If I were reading it I would have no idea what LXX means (not that I would know what Septuagint is, but at least I could rather easily look that up, looking up LXX would be more challenging). Of course the target audience for this book would be more knowledgeable on these things than me; perhaps LXX is "industry standard." 

[Vince Rice]

Searching for LXX isn’t challenging at all, try it.

> On Nov 2, 2025, at 3:19 AM, Lukas Bystricky <lukasby...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Lots of good points here, so apologies for adding one more, but we do occasionally expand abbreviations. Could this be a solution? If I were reading it I would have no idea what LXX means (not that I would know what Septuagint is, but at least I could rather easily look that up, looking up LXX would be more challenging). Of course the target audience for this book would be more knowledgeable on these things than me; perhaps LXX is "industry standard."

[Lukas Bystricky]

Wow, you're quite right. I wasn't expecting that to be first hit. Should have checked first...

Anyways, I meant more just to note the option to expand the abbreviation. That would solve the semantics issue at least, but maybe that's not reason enough by itself. 

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello all,

I guess I opened up an odd can of worms? : )

Something that is standard in most scholarly books with lots of footnotes like this one is a list of abbreviations, where the abbreviations of various works are spelled out, so the reader knows exactly what the abbreviated reference is in the footnotes that follow. (Modern versions of The City of God, such as Henry Bettenson's translation for Penguin Classics, also do this.) Unfortunately, however, this book does not have that list, meaning that each reference can be quite opaque to the reader, unless they have extensive prior knowledge of the sources referred to. On top of that (which is more maddening), they don't always use the same abbreviations to refer to the same source--I've seen at least three different ways Sallust's book De coniuratione Catilinae has been abbreviated (and sometimes they use variant titles of the same book!). (And in an ebook, this list of abbreviations would be useless anyway--flipping back and forth between pages in an ebook is unwieldy and annoying!).

As per my initial post, I've been expanding the abbreviations of sources in the footnotes, so that readers can know what book it's referring to, as well as standardizing the references to the same book, so that it's clearer. It makes it easier to look it up if they don't know what the source is. (Of course, I have been, and will continue, to triple-check the references to make sure they're correct. Which sometimes they haven't been--one time a footnote said "Ecclesiastes" when Augustine was quoting from Ecclesiasticus, and another time Augustine quoted from Horace's Odes and the annotator accidentally put the reference as the Carmen Secularae.) I'll also be standardizing other abbreviations as well--sometimes they abbreviate the word "chapter" as "ch.", other times as "c.", and I'd rather have all those be consistent, for clarity's sake.

As such, I think it might be best to expand the abbreviation of LXX to "Septuagint" (as per Lukas's suggestion), as I think that will make it clearer to readers from a variety of backgrounds. (However, it'd still be good to find some sort of standard as to how to correctly add semantics to "LXX," for future productions.)

Thanks,

Devin

[Alex Cabal]

I think expanding it is a good idea, yes.

On 11/2/25 8:56 AM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I guess I opened up an odd can of worms? : )
>
> Something that is standard in most scholarly books with lots of
> footnotes like this one is a list of abbreviations, where the
> abbreviations of various works are spelled out, so the reader knows
> exactly what the abbreviated reference is in the footnotes that follow.

> (Modern versions of /The City of God/, such as Henry Bettenson's

> translation for Penguin Classics, also do this.) Unfortunately, however,
> this book does not have that list, meaning that each reference can be
> quite opaque to the reader, unless they have extensive prior knowledge
> of the sources referred to. On top of that (which is more maddening),
> they don't always use the same abbreviations to refer to the same

> source--I've seen at least three different ways Sallust's book /De
> coniuratione Catilinae /has been abbreviated (and sometimes they use

> variant titles of the same book!). (And in an ebook, this list of
> abbreviations would be useless anyway--flipping back and forth between
> pages in an ebook is unwieldy and annoying!).
>
> As per my initial post, I've been expanding the abbreviations of sources
> in the footnotes, so that readers can know what book it's referring to,
> as well as standardizing the references to the same book, so that it's
> clearer. It makes it easier to look it up if they don't know what the
> source is. (Of course, I have been, and will continue, to triple-check
> the references to make sure they're correct. Which sometimes they
> haven't been--one time a footnote said "Ecclesiastes" when Augustine was
> quoting from Ecclesiasticus, and another time Augustine quoted from

> Horace's /Odes/ and the annotator accidentally put the reference as
> the /Carmen Secularae/.) I'll also be standardizing other abbreviations

> as well--sometimes they abbreviate the word "chapter" as "ch.", other
> times as "c.", and I'd rather have all those be consistent, for
> clarity's sake.
>
> As such, I think it might be best to expand the abbreviation of LXX to
> "Septuagint" (as per Lukas's suggestion), as I think that will make it
> clearer to readers from a variety of backgrounds. (However, it'd still
> be good to find some sort of standard as to how to correctly add
> semantics to "LXX," for future productions.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Devin
>
>
>
> On Sunday, November 2, 2025 at 7:04:19 AM UTC-6 Vince Rice wrote:
>
> Searching for LXX isn’t challenging at all, try it.
>
> > On Nov 2, 2025, at 3:19 AM, Lukas Bystricky
> <lukasby...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Lots of good points here, so apologies for adding one more, but
> we do occasionally expand abbreviations. Could this be a solution?
> If I were reading it I would have no idea what LXX means (not that I
> would know what Septuagint is, but at least I could rather easily
> look that up, looking up LXX would be more challenging). Of course
> the target audience for this book would be more knowledgeable on
> these things than me; perhaps LXX is "industry standard."
>

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[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello all,

Quick note: I'm currently modernizing hyphenation and spelling, and I noticed that 'se modernize-spelling' turns "for ever" into "forever," but not "for evermore" into "forevermore." Is there a reason for this? If not, then 'se modernize-spelling' should be updated.

Thanks,

Devin

[Alex Cabal]

Thanks, I've added this to modernize-spelling

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[Alex Cabal]

Github appears to be down, this will be fixed in all ebooks once it's
back up.

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello all,

I'm currently proofreading now. As I've said previously, I'm expanding the abbreviated sources, and standardizing their reference names when applicable (making sure that they are indeed the same source). However, it means that there are some issues that have come up.

So here's what a normal, spelled out reference usually looks like (from endnote 328):

And then what an abbreviated source usually looks like (from endnote 331):

So I've expanded some abbreviations (such as "compare") and I've expanded each source (when I can figure out what it is), so that endnote 328 looks like this:

• Compare The Confessions, VI. 2.

And endnote 331 looks like this:

• De Finibus III. 20; Tusculanae Disputationes III. 4.

Checking the SEMoS at Section 8.8.5, Section 8.8.5.3 says "Roman numerals are not followed by trailing periods, except for grammatical reasons." So do I delete the periods after these Roman numerals, so that they look like "VI 2" and "III 20" and "III 4"? Because that looks odd to me.

My thought was that, with references like these, I could delete the intermediate space, so that it looked like "VI.2", "III.20" and "III.4". (I've seen formatting like that in other publications not from Standard Ebooks.) Or, I could keep this as-is, looking like "VI. 2", "III. 20", "III. 4", since perhaps the periods serve a grammatical purpose (dividing a section from a sub-section of a book). Thoughts?

Also, I'd like to standardize the endnote formatting a bit, placing commas after the titles of publications, so that endnote 331 (and endnotes like it) would look like:

• De Finibus, III. 20; Tusculanae Disputationes, III. 4.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Devin

[Emma Sweeney]

Leave the punctuation as-is. You will drive yourself mad trying to standardize old citations.

Emma

[Devin O'Bannon]

Fine by me, especially when there are so many.

Thanks,

Devin

[Devin O'Bannon]

I'm running into an issue with numbers. Starting around Book 15 or so, Augustine talks a lot about the ages of the patriarchs in the beginning of Genesis, so there are quite a lot of numbers thrown around, some spelled out, with others not. Here's an example page of what I'm talking about:

As per section 8.8.3.1, we're supposed to spell out numbers when they're close together in a sentence. However, if I follow this to the letter, I'll be spelling out quite a lot of these numbers throughout this section and others, and I think it would be pretty unwieldy to read. So I was thinking we could do one of three options:

• Leave everything as-is, leaving spelled out numbers and Arabic numbers unchanged from the source text.
• Following the directives in Section 8.8.3 (spelling out numbers from 0-100, etc.), but not following the directives in section 8.8.3.1, so that spelled-out numbers and Arabic numbers are still close to each other.
• Change all the spelled-out numbers to numbers (so "six" becomes "6," "twelve" becomes "12," etc.).

Let me know what you think. If I'm still required to follow section 8.8.3.1 in all instances, that's fine, but I was just thinking it might make it harder to read.

Thanks,

Devin

[Emma Sweeney]

CMoS 9.7: "Consistency and flexibility. Where many numbers occur within a paragraph or a series of paragraphs, maintain consistency in the immediate context. If according to a given rule you must use numerals for one of the numbers in a given category, use them all in that category. (An exception should be made at the beginning of a sentence.) In the same sentence or paragraph, however, items in one category may be given as numerals and items in another spelled out."

Ex. "A mixture of buildings--one of 103 stories, five of more than 50, and a dozen of 3 or 4--has been suggested for the area."

It seems like your text is mostly following this rule: months are spelled out, impossibly large years of age are numerals, ordinals are spelled out, etc. I say leave it as-is.

Emma

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello Emma,

OK, will do.

Thanks,

Devin

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello Emma,

One other question. Typogrify automatically removes commas that directly precede em dashes. At times, there are examples like these, which typogrify does not deal with (from Book 16):

“And his teeth are whiter than milk,”—that is, the nutritive words which, according to the apostle, the babes drink, being as yet unfit for solid food.

In cases like these, do we delete the commas preceding the quotation mark, or do we leave them as-is?

Thanks,

Devin

[Alex Cabal]

You can leave them

On 12/31/25 3:33 PM, Devin O'Bannon wrote:
> Hello Emma,
>
> One other question. Typogrify automatically removes commas that directly
> precede em dashes. At times, there are examples like these, which
> typogrify does not deal with (from Book 16):
>
> “And his teeth are whiter than milk,”—that is, the nutritive words
> which, according to the apostle, the babes drink, being as yet unfit for
> solid food.
>
> In cases like these, do we delete the commas preceding the quotation
> mark, or do we leave them as-is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Devin
>
> On Wednesday, December 31, 2025 at 10:06:22 AM UTC-7 Devin O'Bannon wrote:
>
> Hello Emma,
>
> OK, will do.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Devin
>
> On Tuesday, December 30, 2025 at 2:19:23 PM UTC-7 Emma Sweeney wrote:
>

> CMoS 9.7: "*Consistency and flexibility.* Where many numbers

> occur within a paragraph or a series of paragraphs, maintain
> consistency in the immediate context. If according to a given
> rule you must use numerals for one of the numbers in a given
> category, use them all in that category. (An exception should be
> made at the beginning of a sentence.) In the same sentence or
> paragraph, however, items in one category may be given as
> numerals and items in another spelled out."
>
> Ex. "A mixture of buildings--one of 103 stories, five of more
> than 50, and a dozen of 3 or 4--has been suggested for the area."
>
> It seems like your text is mostly following this rule: months
> are spelled out, impossibly large years of age are numerals,
> ordinals are spelled out, etc. I say leave it as-is.
>
>
> Emma
> On Tuesday, December 30, 2025 at 1:27:48 PM UTC-5
> devino...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I'm running into an issue with numbers. Starting around Book
> 15 or so, Augustine talks a lot about the ages of the
> patriarchs in the beginning of Genesis, so there are quite a
> lot of numbers thrown around, some spelled out, with others
> not. Here's an example page of what I'm talking about:
>

> Screenshot 2025-12-30 at 11.09.56 AM.png
>

> As per section 8.8.3.1 <https://standardebooks.org/
> manual/1.8.5/single-page#8.8.3.1>, we're supposed to spell

> out numbers when they're close together in a
> sentence. However, if I follow this to the letter, I'll be
> spelling out quite a lot of these numbers throughout this
> section and others, and I think it would be pretty unwieldy
> to read. So I was thinking we could do one of three options:
>

> * Leave everything as-is, leaving spelled out numbers and

> Arabic numbers unchanged from the source text.

> * Following the directives in Section 8.8.3 (spelling out

> numbers from 0-100, etc.), but not following the
> directives in section 8.8.3.1, so that spelled-out
> numbers and Arabic numbers are still close to each other.

> * Change all the spelled-out numbers to numbers (so "six"

> Screenshot 2025-12-12 at 6.37.05 PM.png
>
> And then what an abbreviated source usually
> looks like (from endnote 331):

> Screenshot 2025-12-12 at 6.37.35 PM.png
>
> So I've expanded some abbreviations (such as
> "compare") and I've expanded each source (when I
> can figure out what it is), so that endnote 328
> looks like this:
>

> * Compare /The Confessions/, VI. 2.

>
> And endnote 331 looks like this:
>

> * /De Finibus/ III. 20; /Tusculanae
> Disputationes/ III. 4.
>
> Checking the SEMoS at Section 8.8.5 <https://
> standardebooks.org/manual/1.8.5/single-
> page#8.8.5>, Section 8.8.5.3 says "Roman

> numerals are not followed by trailing periods,
> except for grammatical reasons." So do I delete
> the periods after these Roman numerals, so that
> they look like "VI 2" and "III 20" and "III 4"?
> Because that looks odd to me.
>
> My thought was that, with references like these,
> I could delete the intermediate space, so that
> it looked like "VI.2", "III.20" and "III.4".
> (I've seen formatting like that in other
> publications not from Standard Ebooks.) Or, I
> could keep this as-is, looking like "VI. 2",
> "III. 20", "III. 4", since perhaps the periods
> serve a grammatical purpose (dividing a section
> from a sub-section of a book). Thoughts?
>
> Also, I'd like to standardize the endnote
> formatting a bit, placing commas after the
> titles of publications, so that endnote 331 (and
> endnotes like it) would look like:
>

> * /De Finibus/, III. 20; /Tusculanae
> Disputationes/, III. 4.

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[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello Alex,

OK, will do.

Thanks,

Devin

[Devin O'Bannon]

Hello all,

I manually modernized "drag net" to "dragnet," and I thought it might be worth adding to 'se modernize-spelling.'

Devin