[tei-council] TEI by example

[Lou Burnard]

Both the examples Paul cites below were present in P3/P4. Both of them 
are still present in P5. Where's the beef?

The Moseley example (still in P5) demonstrates that <signed> can be used 
in the way Paul suggests, and is the canonical example for the element 
spec itself, as it was in P3 and still is in P5.

The Clarissa example is one of several in section 7.2.2 (P4) or 
http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/DS.html#DSOC (P5) 
demonstrating how to use <opener> and <closer> to combine div-liminal 
elements which seem to belong together. The section notes that "it may 
be convenient" to group such elements together. It does not require it, 
any more than it requires a narrow distinction between the part of a 
signature containing a name and the rest of the phrase around it.
This example is also just the same in P3 
(http://www.tei-c.org.uk/Vault/GL/P3/DS.htm#DSOC)

I don't say that any of these examples is perfect. But I find no 
evidence that either of them has changed in anyway since P3.



Paul F. Schaffner wrote:
>
> One of the more frustrating obstacles facing someone
> contemplating conversion of existing documents from
> P3/P4 to P5 lies not in explicit changes to the scheme
> but in the substitution of one example for another in the
> documentation, when the two examples point to
> diametrically opposed semantics and wholly diverse practices.
> It is difficult in such cases to judge whether the change
> is a deliberate change in semantics or simply reflects
> the (perhaps idiosyncratic) practice of the contributor
> who supplied the new example, without necessarily excluding
> the understanding expressed in the previous example.
>
> For instance, though the definition of <signed> has
> not changed appreciably (maybe at all) from P3 to P5,
> the P3/P4 guidelines included this example:
>
> <signed>Thine to command <name>Humph. Moseley</name></signed>
>
> but the P5 guidelines this (contradictory) one:
>
> <salute>Yours more than my own,</salute>
> <signed>Clarissa Harlowe</signed>
>
> The P3 example makes sense to me. It tells me to include
> within <signed> all the phrases descriptive of, or placed
> in apposition to, the signatory, hence
>
> <signed>Roger Smith, Mayor of London</signed>
> <signed>Your best friend, Roger Smith</signed>
> <signed>A worm among men, but your friend, R.S.</signed>
>
> It treats "R.S., thine forever" and "R.S., editor for life"
> the same.
>
> We have tagged a few hundred thousand signatures
> following this rule.
>
> The P5 example, on the other hand, tells me that
> "your best friend" belongs in <salute>, as
> perhaps does "(but) your friend", but "Mayor of
> London" and perhaps "a worm among men" belong
> in <signed>, without telling me what the principled
> difference is between them.
>
> At this point I do not know whether our practice
> (extrapolated advisedly from the P3 example) is
> wrong, or (if it is) what principle to apply in
> divvying up such phrases between <salute> and <signed>
> in future. Or is the P5 example itself wrong?
>
> pfs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schaffner | PFSchaffner at umich.edu | http://www.umich.edu/~pfs/
> 316-C Hatcher Library N, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1205
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