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That's fine! Our editions didn't erase any of the other editions you can find online and in print. You're more than welcome to select any edition that fits your
by acabal 2y ago
That's fine! Our editions didn't erase any of the other editions you can find online and in print. You're more than welcome to select any edition that fits your reading preferences.
- frereubu 2y agoApologies if that came across as at all critical. Genuinely interested in the rationale rather than it being a how-dare-you demand for you to explain yourself!
- acabal 2y agoSpelling varies widely across the eras our ebooks were published in. Therefore we attempt to standardize spelling to what a modern reader might be familiar with. We only make sound-alike changes, like to-morrow -> tomorrow. This is a common practice that editors and publishers have quietly engaged in for centuries. For example, today you are not reading Shakespeare in the way it was spelled in its first printing.
- cenamus 2y agoAnd you're for sure not speaking it like he would have
- frereubu 2y agoFair enough - thanks for the explanation.
- wpollock 2y agoA wonderful project! After reading this comment I couldn't help but picture medieval monks, toiling away copying old manuscripts into "modern" English. Normally a thankless task, so thank you!
- harshreality 2y agoIs there epub-specific html markup you could add to changed words to indicate their original spelling? Like alt text for images, but in a span around a word? There's the html "title" attribute, of course, which would work (mouseover shows the title attribute's value), but that isn't semantically correct for the purpose.
- acabal 2y agoNo, there are too many things to track, but all of it is in the git history. Editorial changes have a commit message prefaced with [Editorial].
- thoroughburro 1y ago> For example, today you are not reading Shakespeare in the way it was spelled in its first printing. However, we call modernised Shakespeare “abridged”.
- wlonkly 1y agoAbridged means shortened, not modernized.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago[flagged]
- bee_rider 2y agoThe text you have in your “quote” is a lot more snarky and rude than the original message. Did they edit their comment or something? Otherwise—why not quote an actual quote?
- Brian_K_White 2y agoConsidering the thrust of my comment, I don't understand the question. Obviously paraphrasing someone else's words into ones you like better is a fine and acceptable thing to do. So clearly I am just illustrating the problem by example. The real answer is twofold. 1. We don't have a special 3rd kind of quote or other punctuation mark for reinterpreted references. 2. The real one: This is not a quote that lies as you imply. It is a new message, that merely uses quotes to denote a speaker, as in a pure fictional work, where the characters dialog is in quotes, even though no actual human was actually quoted. Are there any other conundrums and baffling mysteries I can clear up for you?
- bee_rider 2y ago“I wanted a pure fictional speaker to argue against.” Ok, thanks, that makes sense.
- Brian_K_White 2y agoAh but I did paraphrase, and you did not. My paraphrasing was not a lie, and yours is.
- esrauch 2y agoWhen you use that syntax it looks like you are calling out an explicit quote; you may think that it's a reasonable paraphrase but I think most readers will see what you did as a strawman instead of a paraphrase. Better to write inline "I feel like what you said amounts to [...]" to reduce the perception they you're making up quotes they someone didn't say or even clearly imply.
- Alive-in-2025 2y agoI appreciate this service you are doing, but it would be much much better to also have an original version with archaic spelling. Double bonus points for have optional (hidden by default) explanations of words. This would be tremendously helpful to some students.