5 ms·

Shameless plug, the free Standard Ebooks edition of the Legge translation: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/laozi/tao-te-ching/james-legge https://standardeboo

by acabal 8y ago

Shameless plug, the free Standard Ebooks edition of the Legge translation: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/laozi/tao-te-ching/james-legge https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/laozi/tao-te-ching/james-l...

cocacola1 8y ago
Your site has been one of my favorite finds of this decade. Thank you for the fantastic work.
- tonetheman 8y ago
  Indeed I second I have seen your site before. Wonderful stuff.
- mrob 8y ago
  Although the ebooks are generally good quality, the spelling and grammar are in many cases (deliberately) changed from the original. When I read a book I want to read the words of the original author, not a modernized version. It would be nice if you could download versions without the "[Editorial]" changes.
  - Double_a_92 8y ago
    So you'd like to read it in ancient chinese? Or a word-by-word literal translation of it? There are always going to be some changes in grammar...
    - mrob 8y ago
      I can't read ancient Chinese, so in the case of the Dao De Jing, I'd prefer a translation, but almost all the books at Standard Ebooks were originally written in Modern English. I consider the original spelling an important part of the work. Consider this edit: https://github.com/standardebooks/h-p-lovecraft_short-fiction/commit/06795f09a941be295bca2151e79721d6f04aa9f8#diff-1232814bebfddd422fb6969754c4d1c4L150 https://github.com/standardebooks/h-p-lovecraft_short-fictio... This is a character who would know that "'phone" is short for "telephone", but it's changed so that he says "phone". It ruins the effect of telephones being new and modern technology, and makes them so commonplace that people are no longer consciously aware that the word "phone" is an abbreviation. (Although it actually does need an edit, because the automatic conversion of the ' failed and turned it into a ‘ instead of the correct ’.)
  - acabal 8y ago
    That's probably the most common complaint we get. However I think most readers are unaware of how heavily the older works they read today have been edited over the years, not just in spelling but in grammar too, often by many different people. For example, the original spelling of Shakespeare in 1609 looks something like this: From off a hill whoſe concaue wombe reworded, A plaintfull ſtory from a ſiſtring vale My ſpirrits t'attend this doble voyce accorded... Vpon her head a plattid hiue of ſtraw...[1] How dare anyone change the spelling of the patron saint of English literature! ;) But of course most modern readers would find that pretty impenetrable, and would prefer a more modern spelling to be able to appreciate the text. As early as 1700 people have been modernizing (for example) Shakespeare, going so far as to add apostrophes that weren't there (I remember one guy in a discussion with me on this topic lamented that modern editions removed apostrophes, when in fact they were added by editors in times past...). Our small, entirely one-for-one spelling edits are in the same spirit. For your example, I don't think removing the apostrophe from "phone" changes the meaning of the text at all. It does remove the explicit announcement to the reader of "phone" as a contraction (though a clever reader will notice that the word "phone" occurs in the word "telephone" in this same story); but does it change the story's meaning? Or, is it more like replacing the long "ſ" in the quote above with a modern "s"? After all, removing "ſ" removes the history of our written language as a descendant of Roman cursive script, which, like the history of "phone" being a contraction, is something that someone somewhere probably would prefer to preserve! The only difference between SE and the editors of old is that we're being upfront about it, and we give readers a chance to undo those changes using Git, if they prefer. And, ultimately, our editions don't prevent anyone from reading older editions with their preferred spelling variant preserved. Old books with old spelling and 100% faithful digital transcriptions are out there for everyone to still enjoy. We're just another option for readers who want to enjoy a timeless book without having to fight through dated spelling. :) [1] http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC_Q1_Son/66/?work=lc http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC...
    - mrob 8y ago
      Changing "ſ" to "s" is just changing the font, so I don't have any problem with that. Changing "v" to "u" is arguably also changing the font, if you assume that the original text had two visually identical but semantically different "v"s. I do think removing the apostrophe from "'phone" changes the meaning, because it implies a different relationship to the technology. It's like writing "internet" without the capital I. This is still considered incorrect, but it's becoming more common, and I think eventually it will replace "Internet". The loss of the capital letter, just like the loss of the apostrophe, shows the technology fading into the background and losing its novelty. And the works of Shakespeare are an extreme example, being older than most works on the site. I'd prefer the original spelling, but for works of that age I can understand changing it. I'd set the publication of Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language" (1755) (or a few years later) as the cut-off point for spelling changes.

by acabal 8y ago

cocacola1 8y ago

Your site has been one of my favorite finds of this decade. Thank you for the fantastic work.

tonetheman 8y ago
Indeed I second I have seen your site before. Wonderful stuff.
mrob 8y ago
Although the ebooks are generally good quality, the spelling and grammar are in many cases (deliberately) changed from the original. When I read a book I want to read the words of the original author, not a modernized version. It would be nice if you could download versions without the "[Editorial]" changes.
- Double_a_92 8y ago
  So you'd like to read it in ancient chinese? Or a word-by-word literal translation of it? There are always going to be some changes in grammar...
  - mrob 8y ago
    I can't read ancient Chinese, so in the case of the Dao De Jing, I'd prefer a translation, but almost all the books at Standard Ebooks were originally written in Modern English. I consider the original spelling an important part of the work. Consider this edit: https://github.com/standardebooks/h-p-lovecraft_short-fiction/commit/06795f09a941be295bca2151e79721d6f04aa9f8#diff-1232814bebfddd422fb6969754c4d1c4L150 https://github.com/standardebooks/h-p-lovecraft_short-fictio... This is a character who would know that "'phone" is short for "telephone", but it's changed so that he says "phone". It ruins the effect of telephones being new and modern technology, and makes them so commonplace that people are no longer consciously aware that the word "phone" is an abbreviation. (Although it actually does need an edit, because the automatic conversion of the ' failed and turned it into a ‘ instead of the correct ’.)
- acabal 8y ago
  That's probably the most common complaint we get. However I think most readers are unaware of how heavily the older works they read today have been edited over the years, not just in spelling but in grammar too, often by many different people. For example, the original spelling of Shakespeare in 1609 looks something like this: From off a hill whoſe concaue wombe reworded, A plaintfull ſtory from a ſiſtring vale My ſpirrits t'attend this doble voyce accorded... Vpon her head a plattid hiue of ſtraw...[1] How dare anyone change the spelling of the patron saint of English literature! ;) But of course most modern readers would find that pretty impenetrable, and would prefer a more modern spelling to be able to appreciate the text. As early as 1700 people have been modernizing (for example) Shakespeare, going so far as to add apostrophes that weren't there (I remember one guy in a discussion with me on this topic lamented that modern editions removed apostrophes, when in fact they were added by editors in times past...). Our small, entirely one-for-one spelling edits are in the same spirit. For your example, I don't think removing the apostrophe from "phone" changes the meaning of the text at all. It does remove the explicit announcement to the reader of "phone" as a contraction (though a clever reader will notice that the word "phone" occurs in the word "telephone" in this same story); but does it change the story's meaning? Or, is it more like replacing the long "ſ" in the quote above with a modern "s"? After all, removing "ſ" removes the history of our written language as a descendant of Roman cursive script, which, like the history of "phone" being a contraction, is something that someone somewhere probably would prefer to preserve! The only difference between SE and the editors of old is that we're being upfront about it, and we give readers a chance to undo those changes using Git, if they prefer. And, ultimately, our editions don't prevent anyone from reading older editions with their preferred spelling variant preserved. Old books with old spelling and 100% faithful digital transcriptions are out there for everyone to still enjoy. We're just another option for readers who want to enjoy a timeless book without having to fight through dated spelling. :) [1] http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC_Q1_Son/66/?work=lc http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/UC...
  - mrob 8y ago
    Changing "ſ" to "s" is just changing the font, so I don't have any problem with that. Changing "v" to "u" is arguably also changing the font, if you assume that the original text had two visually identical but semantically different "v"s. I do think removing the apostrophe from "'phone" changes the meaning, because it implies a different relationship to the technology. It's like writing "internet" without the capital I. This is still considered incorrect, but it's becoming more common, and I think eventually it will replace "Internet". The loss of the capital letter, just like the loss of the apostrophe, shows the technology fading into the background and losing its novelty. And the works of Shakespeare are an extreme example, being older than most works on the site. I'd prefer the original spelling, but for works of that age I can understand changing it. I'd set the publication of Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language" (1755) (or a few years later) as the cut-off point for spelling changes.