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I think paleographers think of the text as an abstract object and manuscripts as approximations of it. E.g. you might have a couple hundred manuscripts (and oth
by fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
I think paleographers think of the text as an abstract object and manuscripts as approximations of it. E.g. you might have a couple hundred manuscripts (and other things like printings, etc) of Aristotle’s Physics, but the text is what you get after you identify and try to correct scribal errors.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoThat is not the same word "text" as used in the headline. (Note that you weren't able to say "a text".) Wiktionary's definition page is something of a train wreck, but if you already know what to look for, the information is there: > text (countable and uncountable, plural texts) ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/text#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/text#English ) Of course one word cannot be "countable and uncountable". But your "text" is uncountable, and bisby's "text" is not.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agowhereas I think in common usage text is anything written and manuscript is a subset of document. Although manuscript in pre-computer days generally meant something handwritten, nowadays I guess you can turn in a manuscript that was written on the computer so not exactly the same.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoI think this is right, although I think the connotations of “text” are a bit more abstract in common usage than “manuscript”.