|
I agree to a certain extent. Latin abbreviations are pretty extensive
(ie what looks like a "9" can mean '-us', '-s', etc). 17th
Century French has similar abbreviations (P^e for Premiere or
Pierre). Context has always, and will always mean a lot in any form of
shorthand system.
You could translate the shorthand sentence to "and then three were awards"
instead of "and then there were words" but if the previous sentence was "In the
beginning there were Letters" then your translation makes little sense.
****************************** Larry Roux Syracuse University lroux@xxxxxxx ******************************* >>> G.Landini@xxxxxxxxxx 07/10/03 05:02AM >>> On Wednesday 09 July 2003 19:47, Larry Roux wrote: > I would say that "cannot be read back" is a bit harsh. After all, I could > write: > > nd thn thr wr wrds > > which is lossy due to loss of vowels, and while it could be read as > "Aenid thine thor wore wards" > > it is obvious it is meant to be: "and then there were words" I do not think it is obvious. It may be to you because you wrote it, but if you did not write it, you have no way of proving that it does not say: "and then three were awards". So what is reversible to you may not be to anybody else. You knew the contents, the rest don't. I would suggest that you have a look at Cappelli to understand the different types of abbreviations there are. (if you can read Italian, there is a full chapter on this in the dictionary). The great majority of abbreviations are not single vowel deletions. I am not saying that the vms is written this way, but if this is the case, the chances of reading it are very small. Cheers, Gabriel ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying: unsubscribe vms-list |