[tei-council] handShift anomaly

[James Cummings]

Syd Bauman wrote:
>>Can anyone remember where the idea of permitting both @old and @new
>>came from?
> 
> 
> I don't remember at all, and would very much like to keep new= and
> drop old=, although perhaps in that case new= should be renamed (to
> what, I'm not sure).

The only time I can think of where you might want to use both new and 
old is when you haven't yet said anything about the previous hand.  So 
you say:

some text <handShift old="#oldHand" new="#newHand"/> more text

this tells me what the old hand was and what the new hand now has 
become.  If I then later do:

more text <handShift old="#oldHand" new="#otherNewHand"/> some more text

then yes, as David points out I'm being silly.  The @old should really 
be 'newHand'.  However, now imagine there is a <gap/>  (or maybe 
<damage/> ) between them (for whatever reason), then suddenly it makes 
sense again.

some text <handShift old="#oldHand" new="#newHand"/> more text
<damage agent="burning"/>
more text <handShift old="#oldHand" new="#otherNewHand"/> some more text

The text starts in oldHand, switches to newHand, then there is some 
textual or editorial problem which means material is omitted, but when 
it comes back it is in oldHand, and then switches to  otherNewHand.

In that case having old and new on both might make sense.  Ok, I'll be 
the first to admit that you could do something like:

<handShift new="#oldHand"/>some text <handShift new="#newHand"/> more 
text <damage agent="burning"/><handShift new="#oldHand"/>
more text <handShift new="#otherNewHand"/> some more text

to convey the same information.


> As for <desc>, I am currently undecided.

I think it is a good idea, if and only if, it is made explicit in the 
guidelines that it should only be used for localised description as 
Lou suggested, rather than as a replacement for the pointing by @new.

-James
-- 
Dr James Cummings, Oxford Text Archive, University of Oxford