[tei-council] list types and rends: bug 460

Sun Dec 22 16:18:01 EST 2013

On 22/12/13 17:26, Martin Holmes wrote:
>
> "If however an enumerator is retained in the encoded text, it may be
> supplied either by using the n attribute on the item element, or by
> using a label element."
>
> It provides examples of the former, like this:
>
> <list rend="runon" type="ordered">
>    <item n="1">My first rough manuscript, without any
>      intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.</item>
>    <item n="2">Not a sheet has been seen by any human
>      eyes, excepting those of the author and the printer:
>      the faults and the merits are exclusively my own.</item>
> </list>
>
> where the numbers in the @n attribute are transcribed from the text.
> This seems to me egregious: transcribed text should never be in
> attribute values.
>
> Do you agree?

Mmm, not entirely. Consider the case of page numbering. Or chapter 
numbering. It's quite legitimate to look at your source text, notice 
that it says "42" on the page, not transcribe that,  but encode it as 
<pb n="42"/> surely? Similarly, a chapter heading such as

                         Chapter XLII
                      Of many things

can legitimately be encoded as

<div n="xlii" type="chapter"><head>Of many things</head>
...

I think.