dagblog - Comments for "Being a Pseudonym"

Oh, take it as a compliment.

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:28:46 +0000

Oh, take it as a compliment. For "internet institution" read "kind of a big deal."

Thanks for commenting. Everybody had to be prudent about something once in a while, and I guess the pseudonym is one of my prudent moments.

Thanks for the hint. George

acanuck — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:19:24 +0000

In reply to You know, I don't know that,

Thanks for the hint. George Painter wrote a Caxton biography in 1976. I'll try to track down a copy.

Who are you calling an

Historiann — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:14:52 +0000

In reply to Being a Pseudonym

Who are you calling an "institution?"

Who wants to blog in a f^cking institution?

I like your point about not wanting your students to figure you out in an easily googlable fashion. This is something my students are doing--no serious fallout yet, but in retrospect I wonder if yours isn't the more prudent course.

You know, I don't know that,

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:35:17 +0000

In reply to Whoo! This thread just turned

You know, I don't know that, ac. I don't read a lot of early printed books from before 1579 or so, by which point the eth, thorn, and yogh are largely gone. I'm not even sure, myself, how much the change is driven by typography and how much it's driven bychanges in manuscript culture.

The first major English printer is Caxton, so looking at work on him might be a help.

Whoo! This thread just turned

acanuck — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:13:58 +0000

In reply to Hey Emerson,The short answer

Whoo! This thread just turned all typographical. Count me in. Doctor, you may be just the person who can point me to a source on typography's role in the extinction of eth and thorn from English. The few books I've seen that touch on this fascinating story are pretty vague about the timeline, and about which imported fonts gave those two workhorses of the language their final push into the dustbin of history. I would have thought some patriotic English engraver would have taken a stand, and equally patriotic readers would have rallied to his side.

NEVER be afraid to

emerson — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:31:36 +0000

In reply to Hey Emerson,The short answer

NEVER be afraid to go geeky with me. I live for this type of of information. :)

Interesting answer on the printing. I am starting a publishing company and I have been delving into historical printing methods, especially 19th century. I realize, of course, that today so much of that is not used anymore but I think it is good to understand how things were done even though so much is electronic today. Good to know the basics. Also, I like to make books for my nieces and nephew and so I like to employ the old methods. Thanks for the info and I may have more questions for you on Shakespeare, Shakspeare, Shakespear, etc. if you don't mind. Now that I know, it is going to be hard to not want to ask you a million questions! I will try to pace myself.

Hey Emerson,The short answer

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:07:50 +0000

In reply to Wow, just typed a long

Hey Emerson,

The short answer is that spelling wasn't standardized in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, so people spelled words, including other people's names, any way they felt like it. They even spell their own names differently at different times, because there's no "right way" to do it. So you'll see Shakespeare, Shakspeare, Shagspear, Shaxpere, Shakespear, whatever. Even he doesn't stick to a consistent spelling when signing his name. But this isn't something special about him; this is true of everyone. (Just ask Christopher Marloe AKA Christofer Marlowe AKA Cristofer Morley AKA Christopher Merlin.) We just notice it with Shakespeare because scholars have paid such fanatical attention to him.

The longer answer [WARNING: Major geek content] is that printers had a special reason to spell his name Shakespeare or Shak-spear on title pages, instead of "Shakspeare" because some typefaces had problems when you put a letter k just before a letter s. Basically when those letters were set in that order they would rub against each other and damage the bits of type. {Why would this be? If you must know, because it was the italic typeface that had this problem and italic was invented by actual Italians. Aldo never foresaw the k-followed-by-s being a problem, because no language he spoke had any "ks" spellings.) So printers would make sure to slip either a hyphen or silent e or both in there.

And Doctor Humungoid was just

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:55:15 +0000

In reply to I was gonna post as Doctor

And Doctor Humungoid was just too much of a giveaway.

As I said, Quinn, I don't want to blog under my legal name. But thanks.

Wow, just typed a long

emerson — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:46:00 +0000

In reply to Being a Pseudonym

Wow, just typed a long comment and it is mysteriously not here anymore. Deep breathe.

Anyway, that is interesting about your knowledge of Shakespeare. I am a bibliophile and one of the books I have is an 1884 collection of all of his works. The front of the book has an engraving that says Shakspeare. I thought that was a misspelling when I first saw it but after a bit of research I found that there were a number of spellings of Shakespeare that are floating about out there. I'd be interested if you know more about this.

I was gonna post as Doctor

quinn esq — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:29:40 +0000

In reply to Being a Pseudonym

I was gonna post as Doctor Quinn, but then this friggin' Medicine Woman came along, so I became an Eskimo instead.

Plus, there's the porn years. And Doctor Humungoid was just too much of a giveaway.

Oops.