[B-Greek] B-Greek Year End Awards

Sarah Madden sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
Tue Jan 5 08:18:05 EST 2010


The wisdom of John Sanders and Vasile Stancu re. keeping the smooth
breathing mark, whose utility I (foolishly?) once questioned, makes me
ALMOST think I should concede my HAWKEYE PIERCE AWARD FOR THE ORTHOGRAPHIC
REFORM LEAST LIKELY TO TAKE PLACE BECAUSE IT MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE, but I
nevertheless plan to keep my graciously bestowed award (thanks, Mark
[FWSFOROS MARKOS]!). (I mean, how often does one ever receive such an
award???)



Both John and Vasile make excellent points that, if the smooth breathing
mark never existed, scribes occasionally could have forgotten to add the
rough breathing mark, but in the current two-mark system, they had to make a
judgment and would have been less inclined to accidentally insert an
incorrect breathing mark. Thus it is more likely that an intentional smooth
breathing mark is accurate. Point well made, gentlemen!



Sarah Madden (aka Hawkeye Pierce) ><>

Maryland USA





On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 2:26 AM, Vasile STANCU <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro> wrote:

> I would endorse John's view. In everyday quality related documents it is
> quite usual (if not mandatory) that when a certain variable/parameter is not
> applicable, an N/A ('not applicable') sign is indicated. Even though a blank
> box would imply the same, by indicating an N/A the idea is conveyed that the
> individual who filled in the document made a judgement in that sense. It is,
> I would say, assuming full responsibility for the respective
> action/decision. The same with the spirits: if both are indicated, I know
> that the writer/editor/etc. has made the respective judgement.
>
> Vasile Stancu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:
> b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of John Sanders
> Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:52 AM
> To: Mark Lightman
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] B-Greek Year End Awards
>
> In reference to THE HAWKEYE PIERCE AWARD FOR THE
>
> ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM LEAST LIKELY TO
>
> TAKE PLACE BECAUSE IT MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE:
>
> Sarah Madden, for suggesting that we retain rough breathings
>
> but get rid of smooth readings.
>
>
>
> If I may, I would like to come to the support of Aristophanes of Byzantium.
>  I fear many may not understand the significance of using two symbols for
> the aspirate (one for smooth breathing and one for rough breathing).  At
> one
> time, many years ago, I also thought along similar lines as they who wish
> to
> eliminate the redundant symbol, but my work requirements changed that for
> me.
>
>
>
> When I was a young engineer I was required to create and maintain lists in
> which the items would be in one of two states, either the “is” state or the
> “not is” state:  either it would be aspirated or it would not be, it would
> be completed or it would not be, it would contain X or it would not, etc.
>  I
> knew that only one symbol was required to list these items and so I
> constructed my lists accordingly, using a symbol to record the “is” state
> and no symbol to record the “not is” state.
>
>
>
> Instead of the one problem that I thought would be involved in these lists,
> I had two problems to deal with:  the expected problem which I will label
> as
> mis-identification, that is where one identifies the “is” state as “not is”
> and vice versa; and the unexpected problem which I will label as
> non-identification, that is for what ever reason one does not label the
> state one way or the other.  Assuming one has the knowledge to recognize
> the
> “is” state from the “not is” state, the problem of mis-identification is
> minimal, especially compared to the problem of non-identification.  But non
> –identification could not be distinguished from the “not is” state.  This
> created a quality control problem.  Although theoretically not necessary, I
> found that using two symbols, one for the “is” state and one for the “not
> is” state improved the quality of my lists immeasurably.
>
>
>
> So when I see a list of words with the both the rough breathing and smooth
> breathing marks, lists such as the Iliad, etc., then I have much more
> confidence in their accuracy than if they only had one such mark.
>
>
>
> >  --
> > John Sanders
> > Suzhou, China
> >
> ---
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>
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-- 
Sarah ><>
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
work: 301.429.8189



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