LL-L: "Copy-editing" LOWLANDS-L, 15.MAY.2001 (02) [E]

Tue May 15 21:06:26 UTC 2001

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Copy-editing"

> From:  SeonaidhC at aol.com
> Subject: LL-L: "Copy-editing" LOWLANDS-L, 13.MAY.2001 (03) [E]
>
> Hallo Sandy, I know that there's an argument against changing the
> published texts as some people feel that Burns deliberately drew on the
currency of
> English forms as part of his style, but I must say that your improved
text

I think this depends on what Burns's intent was, and for
the most part this seems quite clear to me. For example,
in the Tam O'Shanter, the passage starting with "But
pleasures are like poppies spread..." is clearly meant to
be in English. I see the Tam O'Shanter as a poem in which
Burns is giving the reciter an opportunity to display all
his skills of elocution, including his English diction.
And again, there is some recognisable hybrid English in
the two lines of the example I gave:

By which heroic Tam was able,
Tae note upon the haly table...

This is something you might well hear a Scots speaker saying
for humourous effect or to draw attention to themselves, and
I'm quite happy with "which" here (although I could be tempted
to change "by" to "bi").

> feels far more comfortable than the original, except that 'which' sticks
> out.
> Why not go all the way?

Yes, it's true that the other "which"es really should be
"that"s and they make for uncomfortable reading. I'm
inclined to say that no Scots speaker could possibly
speak this way, and just change them to "that" - or
possibly "whilk" if the grammar is correct, although
I hesitate here since I'm not sure Burns ever used this
word, either in writing or in speech.

However, going all the way is probably going too far.
This would mean changing "Scots Wha Hae" into "Scots
That Haes", for example. It doesn't matter how wrong
the original seems, you can see that nobody's going to
accept the corrected version! On the whole I think the
incorrect use of "wha" and "wham" instead of "that" is
not quite so painful as "which", and might be better
left alone.

> From:  Colin Wilson <lcwilson at starmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L: "Copy-editing" LOWLANDS-L, 13.MAY.2001 (03) [E]
>
> As far as this specific example goes, my only suggestion would
> be to change "unchristen'd" to "unchristent".

This is a difficult point. In that passage I would
also pronounce some of the other words like this -
"new-cuttit", "rustit", "crustit", "stranglt", "manglt".

I find, though, that the more I write Scots, the less I
tend to use "-t" instead of the more traditional "-d" in
past participle endings. The reasons for this are probably
two aspects of the same thing:

    o  it makes it very difficult to achieve consistent
       spellings;
    o  the actual usage varies from region to region.

This second point makes me class this sort of spelling along
with attempts to consistently distinguish the [@i] and [a:i]
diphthongs in spellings - the sounds aren't used consistently
from region to region and writers tend to be inconsistent in
their usage, even with the same words in the the same passage.
Instead, I think it's better to write the participle ending as
"d" and accept that there's an devoicing rule for it in Scots,
just as happens (though more thoroughly) in many other Germanic
languages.

In this way, I hope not to spoil the text by showing
devoicings in the spellings where some Scots-speaking
readers might not actually say it that way. They might
accept the writer's practices being at variance with
their own, but that's a lot different from some editor
doing something unsympathetic to the text!

Of course I don't intend any of this to apply to the
traditional "happit", "keepit" &c endings.

Does this all make sense?

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Copy-editing
>
> are not presented at your site.  (I suppose simple bibliographical
> references would suffice.)

There will be a bibliography of sources that I know about
(not just the ones used, since many of these will be
inaccessible to most readers - I doubt if you can get my
1809 copy of Fergusson through amazon!). Hopefully the
"improved" ScotsteXt versions will remain the most popular
with the readers, though!

> I also agree with your decision not to change grammatical and lexical
> choices.  If it were my project, I would probably use footnotes or,
> preferably, inserted notes in cases of glaringly "un-Scots" words (e.g.,
> "... which [= whilk] ..."), perhaps inserted in a different,
> lighter color, such as gray.

Yes, I'm not mad keen on having notes inserted in the text -
a bit of a distraction! It may be that a page of general
notes on what "improving" involves will be enough. I already
have a margin for authors' and editors' notes on the texts,
so I can still provide anything more specific there.

I try to keep all kinds of readers in mind, natives,
non-natives and academics, but I place a high importance
on keeping the main text clear and easy to read. I think
that with some supporting pages on how to read and pronounce
Scots, most readers should be able to master the texts for
themselves.

> From:  Thomas <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
> Subject: LL-L: "Copy-editing" LOWLANDS-L, 14.MAY.2001 (04) [E]
>
> Face it, Burns has been translated into many languages so why not do it
in
> real Scots? It will be just as valid as Russian. Go for it Sandy!

I'm just glad to hear that the idea meets with a general
welcome! I'll be "going for it", but "ca'in canny" all
the same!

Thanks for all the comments, folks - since there seems to
be a general agreement, I think I can set about the task
with some confidence now!

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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