Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters

"me" <paulrugg.DeleteThis@cox.net> wrote in message news:bvCUb.29229$u_6.5695@lakeread04...
 > "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is
 > absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and
 > to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working,
 > begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and
 > sheer beauty."
   > > > - JRRT, Letter #131
 >
 > Are the items in parentheses instertions made by Tolkien or by the Editors
 > of the book "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien" ?

No offense, but why the hell would you believe they were made by
the editors?

Aris Katsaris<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

"Aris Katsaris" <katsaris.DeleteThis@otenet.gr> wrote in message
news:bvusgu$95f$1@ulysses.noc.ntua.gr...
 >
 > "me" <paulrugg.DeleteThis@cox.net> wrote in message
news:bvCUb.29229$u_6.5695@lakeread04...
  > > "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and Rosie (nowhere elaborated)
is
  > > absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character,
and
  > > to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating,
working,
  > > begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves',
and
  > > sheer beauty."
   > > > > - JRRT, Letter #131
  > >
  > > Are the items in parentheses instertions made by Tolkien or by the
Editors
  > > of the book "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien" ?
 >
 > No offense, but why the hell would you believe they were made by
 > the editors?

Heh...! None taken!

It was argument by someone (on another forum) that they are *really*
comments being made by the editors of "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", and
as such should be in square brackets with the "NB" notation. I disagreed
with the person, on the premise that the editors would be unlikely to make
such a blunder - and was looking for something a little more substantial
than "yes it is/No it isn't" - which our argument had pretty much
degenerated into. Neither of us were able to cite any sources more
authoratative than the above quote found on the internet (and as such may
have been changed), and not having a copy of "The Letters of J.R.R.
Tolkien", immediately at hand, I came here.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

It seems "me" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
 >What I meant to ask is that in the book, "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", on
 >the actual, physical printed page, (as opposed to anywhere on the internet),
 >are those items enclosed in square brackets with the 'nb' notation, or with
 >simple rounded brackets? Not what are they supposed to be, but if I go out
 >and pick up a copy of the book (which I will be doing), what will I see?

Editorial notes are not inserted in the text with brackets square or
round, but are endnotes.

When you read the introduction you will see that Carpenter even took
care to distinguish his own cuts (....) from Tolkien's use of
ellipsis (...).

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://OakRoadSystems.com" target="_blank">http://OakRoadSystems.com</a>
Tolkien FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://Tolkien.slimy.com" target="_blank">http://Tolkien.slimy.com</a> (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html" target="_blank">http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html</a>
FAQ of the Rings: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm</a>
Encyclopedia of Arda: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm" target="_blank">http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm</a>
more FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

It seems "me" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
 >"I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is
 >absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and
 >to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working,
 >begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and
 >sheer beauty."
   >> > - JRRT, Letter #131
 >
 >Are the items in parentheses instertions made by Tolkien or by the Editors
 >of the book "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien" ?

There was one editor, Humphrey Carpenter. While I have not seen
Tolkien's original manuscript letters, I think we can be confident
that the text in parentheses is Tolkien's own.

 >If they were made by the editors shouldn't they be in []'s preceded by
 >"N.B." a-la:

I don't know where you get the "N.B.": when an editor makes a
bracketed addition "N.B." would be gratuitous.

Yes, of course if Carpenter made any additions they should be
bracketed, but as far as I am aware he did not. He put headnotes, in
smaller text and bracketed, at the start of many letters to explain
the circumstances; otherwise he said what he had to say in endnotes.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://OakRoadSystems.com" target="_blank">http://OakRoadSystems.com</a>
Tolkien FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://Tolkien.slimy.com" target="_blank">http://Tolkien.slimy.com</a> (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html" target="_blank">http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html</a>
FAQ of the Rings: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm</a>
Encyclopedia of Arda: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm" target="_blank">http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm</a>
more FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

"me" <paulrugg.TakeThisOut@cox.net> wrote in message
news:SJDUb.29594$u_6.18873@lakeread04...
 > It was argument by someone (on another forum) that they are *really*
 > comments being made by the editors of "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien",
and
 > as such should be in square brackets with the "NB" notation. I disagreed
 > with the person, on the premise that the editors would be unlikely to make
 > such a blunder - and was looking for something a little more substantial
 > than "yes it is/No it isn't" - which our argument had pretty much
 > degenerated into. Neither of us were able to cite any sources more
 > authoratative than the above quote found on the internet (and as such may
 > have been changed), and not having a copy of "The Letters of J.R.R.
 > Tolkien", immediately at hand, I came here.

What would the other person expect the editors to do when Tolkien put things
in parentheses?

Square brackets would mean it was the editors' work. Parens are all his.

Tsar Parmathule<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

"me" <paulrugg RemoveThis @cox.net> wrote in message
news:SJDUb.29594$u_6.18873@lakeread04...

 > It was argument by someone (on another forum) that they are *really*
 > comments being made by the editors of "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien",
 > and as such should be in square brackets with the "NB" notation.

As others have explained Carpenter gave a detailed description of his
process. The only 'editorial alterations' to the text that he made were
cases where passages were skipped (rare and always marked by '....' to
distinguish from Tolkien's own '...') and standardization of the date
format and book titles.

The text in question was Tolkien's own wording. He frequently used
paranthetical statements... similar to the manner you did in the text
quoted above.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown RemoveThis @fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:MPG.1a8d2166deb00f3f98bda6@news.odyssey.net...

 > I don't know where you get the "N.B.": when an editor makes a
 > bracketed addition "N.B." would be gratuitous.

The "N.B." is according to an acquantaince of mine who is a professor of
english literature, although she didn't say "N.B." was absolutely compusory.


And thanks for the rest!<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

me <paulrugg.RemoveThis@cox.net> wrote:
  >> "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and Rosie (nowhere
  >> elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief
  >> hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary
  >> life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice,
  >> causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and sheer beauty."
   >>>> - JRRT, Letter #131

 > What I meant to ask is that in the book, "The Letters of J.R.R.
 > Tolkien", on the actual, physical printed page, (as opposed to
 > anywhere on the internet), are those items enclosed in square
 > brackets with the 'nb' notation, or with simple rounded brackets? Not
 > what are they supposed to be, but if I go out and pick up a copy of
 > the book (which I will be doing), what will I see?

In my copy of /Letters/, they are '( )', the rounded brackets (also
called parantheses), and this is intended to indicate Tolkien's own use
of parantheses in his letters. In other words, Tolkien himself was
admitting that Sam and Rosie's 'rustic love' was nowhere elaborated. And
he means nowhere elaborated in his writings.

BTW, your quote from Letter 131 also missed out what could be important
points if you want to really nit-pick the meaning of the quotation.

1) "Sam and his Rosie". You miss out the word "his".
2) "absolutely essential" is in italics. This is commonly denoted in a
text forum like Usenet, by the use of '/... /' marks like this:
"/absolutely essential/". It can be, if you will forgive the pun,
/absolutely essential/!

Though I can understand the editor of /Letters/ (Humphrey Carpenter,
aided by Christopher Tolkien) using italics in a printed book, I wonder
whether Tolkien actually used italics in his (handwritten) letters?

I think Tolkien did have a distinctive, almost calligraphic, writing
style, but I think that adding an emphasis to a handwritten letter would
be done by _underlining_. I would be interested to know if anyone has
seen original manuscripts of Tolkien's letters (or had a lettter from
Tolkien), and can confirm this?

Duh! I can confirm this myself with /Letters/. There is a reproduction
of a handwritten letter by JRRT in the front of /Letters/. It is Letter
22, and comparing the handwritten letter with the printed version in the
main part of the book, we can confirm the following:

1) Humphrey Carpenter (or his sub-editor) used standard editing
conventions such as italicising book titles: here /The Hobbit/.
2) '....' does indeed denote an omission by Carpenter: trivia like
confirming the arrival of advance copies of /The Hobbit/.
3) Carpenter also uses italics to indicate underlining used by Tolkien
for emphais, such as _errata_ => /errata/.
4) Carpenter uses '[ ]' for editorial explanation in the letter. So
editorial intrusions (though minimal in the letters) are not just
limited to headnotes and endnotes.
5) Carpenter also corrects minor grammatical mistakes, such as: "I then
put on my youngest son..." => "I then put my youngest son...". Though
correct, the phrase "put my youngest son ... to find" is still slightly
unclear, but is clearer that "put on", and was probably the limit of the
editing that Carpenter dared perform.
6) "(I hope)" confirms that Tolkien, as expected, did use parantheses.

Much, but not all, of this is explained by Carpenter in his
introduction. I believe that Tolkien himself also used footnotes in his
letters. In my edition of Letters, these are indicated by an '*' in the
text and at the foot of the page. One letter (209) has four footnotes,
three of which are marked by characters that don't appear on my
keyboard! * is there, but not a cross, a double cross, and something
that looks similar to a $ sign, but may be a Greek 's' or something?

Anyway, that's enough about boring editorial punctuation!

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

It seems "Christopher Kreuzer" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
 >In my copy of /Letters/, they are '( )', the rounded brackets (also
 >called parantheses), and this is intended to indicate Tolkien's own use

Your main point I agree with completely. Some people just love to
put things in parentheses (note spelling): Tolkien was one.

 >Though I can understand the editor of /Letters/ (Humphrey Carpenter,
 >aided by Christopher Tolkien) using italics in a printed book, I wonder
 >whether Tolkien actually used italics in his (handwritten) letters?

Underlining in handwriting customarily translates to italics in
typesetting -- as you yourself concluded after looking at a
facsimile of a Tolkien letter. Underlining in typesetting is quite
rare because it screws up the interline spacing.

<humor>
In the olden days when I was in grade school, instead of computers
we had these funny devices that looked like a keyboard plus printer
combined -- no screen. If you can believe it, while better
models were all electric, some models actually used the operator's
OWN MUSCLE POWER to make letters on the page. And if we made a
mistake, the document wasn't "in memory" anywhere: we had to retype
the bad page FROM SCRATCH!!!

Anyway, grammar and composition books of that day spent considerable
time telling us how to do word processing on these "typewriters".
Underlining to replace italics was standard: for titles of books and
(in moderation) for emphasis.
</humor>

Joking aside, it's kind of amazing how far we have come in what a
short time. Home computers are barely 20 years old (the first Dell
debuted in about 1985; earlier machines were aimed at businesses and
dedicated hobbyists). When we did word processing in college (circa
1970), we used line printers that could print only capital letters,
so the capitals in titles and at the beginnings of sentences were
faked by striking the letter three times, i.e. bold face.

 >4) Carpenter uses '[ ]' for editorial explanation in the letter. So
 >editorial intrusions (though minimal in the letters)

Hmm-- can you give an example? I don't yet know /Letters/ by heart
but I don't remember any Carpenteriana in the middle of any letter.

 >Much, but not all, of this is explained by Carpenter in his
 >introduction. I believe that Tolkien himself also used footnotes in his
 >letters.

You believe correctly. He was addicted to them!

And so am I -- parentheses as well. I have to revise my stuff again
and again to take out parenthetical remarks -- either lose them
entirely or integrate them better with the text. (Un)fortunately,
footnotes are doable in HTML but don't come off well, though I'm
thinking about floating sidebars.

Tolkien wrote in a different time, when people were used to savoring
the written or printed word. He could develop several threads at
once by using footnotes, and complicate the sentence structure by
inserting parenthetical remarks. Today the reader who will stand for
that sort of thing is in a distinct minority. How many would read
Gibbon for pleasure, other than old coots like me?

 >One letter (209) has four footnotes,
 >three of which are marked by characters that don't appear on my
 >keyboard! * is there, but not a cross, a double cross, and something

Those are, I believe, a dagger and double dagger: standard
typesetting characters and also in the Unicode character set. In
HTML they would be † and ‡ respectively. Not all
browsers cope with them, even if you have installed a suitable font.
See my
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.acad.sunytccc.edu/instruct/sbrown/viewing.htm#Unicode" target="_blank">http://www.acad.sunytccc.edu/instruct/sbrown/viewing.htm#Unicode</a>
for browser setup hints, and Alan Wood's
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/demos/wgl4.html" target="_blank">http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/demos/wgl4.html</a>
for a list of the characters.

 >that looks similar to a $ sign, but may be a Greek 's' or something?

Greek s, sigma, looks like an "s" at the end of a word and an "o"
with tangent line elsewhere. You're thinking of the "section mark",
§ in HTML, used in scholarly writing to indicate a section
number e.g. of a law code.

Another favorite is the "pilcrow" or paragraph mark, ¶.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://OakRoadSystems.com" target="_blank">http://OakRoadSystems.com</a>
Tolkien FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://Tolkien.slimy.com" target="_blank">http://Tolkien.slimy.com</a> (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html" target="_blank">http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html</a>
FAQ of the Rings: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm</a>
Encyclopedia of Arda: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm" target="_blank">http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm</a>
more FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
 >
 > Much, but not all, of this is explained by Carpenter in his
 > introduction. I believe that Tolkien himself also used footnotes in his
 > letters. In my edition of Letters, these are indicated by an '*' in the
 > text and at the foot of the page. One letter (209) has four footnotes,
 > three of which are marked by characters that don't appear on my
 > keyboard! * is there, but not a cross, a double cross, and something
 > that looks similar to a $ sign, but may be a Greek 's' or something?
 >
On a Macintosh, the "dagger" (Ý) is entered by typing option-t, the
"double dagger" (ý) is option-& (option-shift-7), and the "section
mark" (§), which is not from Greek but just a stylized or doubled
Latin S, is option-6. If you're using Windows, look in your Character
Map (by default under System Accessories in the Start menu, I
believe): I'm pretty sure all of these characters can be accessed
with escape sequences of the form Alt-####, the digits being entered
from the numeric keypad, or directly copied from the Character Map
window into the Clipboard for pasting into any text field or document.

The sequence you describe for indicating footnotes with miscellaneous
printers' marks is quite conventional; while I don't know its origins
I would guess it to have begun in the XVIII c. A fifth footnote would
be given a "paragraph mark" (¶, Mac option-7), which resembles a
backwards P with a doubled stem and often a solid bowl. (I don't
expect these non-ASCII examples I typed to be translated by most
newsreaders -- including mine when it uploads this posting. I'd be
interested to know if anyone *does* see any of them correctly displayed.)

The dagger's principal use, other than for footnotes, is in
genealogical records, where it indicates a premature or violent
death. You'll see it so used by Tolkien in some renditions of his
characters' family trees, for example IIRC in the Appendices to LotR.
I don't know another conventional use for the double dagger -- does
anyone here?

You're most likely to see section and paragraph marks used for
cross-referencing in the sort of old-fashioned treatises and
textbooks in which each paragraph or article is numbered; legal
documents referring to clauses from laws and regulations are another
natural habitat for these critters. When using most word processors
one can also see paragraph marks with a display command called
something like "Show Invisibles" or "Show Formatting", where they
indicate the "carriage returns" in a text document.

--
Odysseus<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

Odysseus <odysseus1479-at.RemoveThis@yahoo-dot.ca> wrote:

[very interesting stuff on footnotes]

 > On a Macintosh, the "dagger" (Ý) is entered by typing option-t, the
 > "double dagger" (ý) is option-& (option-shift-7), and the "section
 > mark" (§), which is not from Greek but just a stylized or doubled
 > Latin S, is option-6. If you're using Windows, look in your Character
 > Map (by default under System Accessories in the Start menu, I
 > believe): I'm pretty sure all of these characters can be accessed
 > with escape sequences of the form Alt-####, the digits being entered
 > from the numeric keypad, or directly copied from the Character Map
 > window into the Clipboard for pasting into any text field or document.

I used to use Character Map a lot. At one point I had a list of commonly
used Alt-#### sequences, but that was a long time ago now!

 > The sequence you describe for indicating footnotes with miscellaneous
 > printers' marks is quite conventional

I have seen footnotes used before. I never knew about the conventional
sequence though. I've sometimes used footnotes and just picked random
upper case (as in the top row of a keyboard key) symbols as I saw fit!

 > while I don't know its origins
 > I would guess it to have begun in the XVIII c. A fifth footnote would
 > be given a "paragraph mark" (¶, Mac option-7), which resembles a
 > backwards P with a doubled stem and often a solid bowl. (I don't
 > expect these non-ASCII examples I typed to be translated by most
 > newsreaders -- including mine when it uploads this posting. I'd be
 > interested to know if anyone *does* see any of them correctly
 > displayed.)

I use OE, though with QuoteFix, and the section mark and paragraph mark
came through fine. The daggers seemed to kill each other en route...
They turned into capital and lower-case Y's respectively, both with
acute accents. Maybe you'll see them in this post.

 > When using most word processors
 > one can also see paragraph marks with a display command called
 > something like "Show Invisibles" or "Show Formatting", where they
 > indicate the "carriage returns" in a text document.

I've recently learnt to use these formatting views when formatting
documents properly. I used to do spacings in a document by just hitting
return a few times... I know better now of course!

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.DeleteThis@fastmail.fm> wrote:
 > It seems "Christopher Kreuzer" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
  >> In my copy of /Letters/, they are '( )', the rounded brackets (also
  >> called parantheses), and this is intended to indicate Tolkien's own
  >> use
 >
 > Your main point I agree with completely. Some people just love to
 > put things in parentheses (note spelling): Tolkien was one.

obnote: parentheses. {Thanks}!

 > <humor>
 > In the olden days when I was in grade school, instead of computers
 > we had these funny devices that looked like a keyboard plus printer
 > combined -- no screen. If you can believe it, while better
 > models were all electric, some models actually used the operator's
 > OWN MUSCLE POWER to make letters on the page. And if we made a
 > mistake, the document wasn't "in memory" anywhere: we had to retype
 > the bad page FROM SCRATCH!!!

You really are dating yourself, you know...

I know Tolkien used a typewriter for some of his letters. Would I be
right in saying that you can't do italics on them? I know Tolkien had
some special (Gothic?) symbols made up for his typewriter. IIRC, when I
once used a typewriter, you had to manually push the carriage back at
the end of each line. The shift key made the print keys do weird things,
rise up by an inch or so IIRC. They were noisy as hell. Bold was done by
double typing. You could cross stuff out by typing 'x' across it. You
could go back and underline stuff as well. And you had to manually line
the paper up before starting to type, and that was tricky as hell! My
typewriter (this was when I was about 8 or 9) would always have the
paper slide to one side so that the lines went wonky. And the ribbon
would sometimes get tangled, or the paper would get chewed up.

So even back then, 'printers' were always breaking down!

 > Joking aside, it's kind of amazing how far we have come in what a
 > short time.

Can you predict what will happen in the next 20 years? What could
complete the revolution in publishing?

 > When we did word processing in college (circa
 > 1970), we used line printers that could print only capital letters,
 > so the capitals in titles and at the beginnings of sentences were
 > faked by striking the letter three times, i.e. bold face.

<boggle> You _are_ making this up, right? Please say yes...

  >> 4) Carpenter uses '[ ]' for editorial explanation in the letter. So
  >> editorial intrusions (though minimal in the letters)
 >
 > Hmm-- can you give an example? I don't yet know /Letters/ by heart
 > but I don't remember any Carpenteriana in the middle of any letter.

As I said, _very_ minimal. I only noticed because I studied Letter 22 in
great detail. It is not really an editorial comment, more an editorial
explanation. Carpenter says "[in /The Hobbit/]" to explain something
that would have been obvious if he hadn't removed another sentence,
replacing it with '....' instead. Other examples are in Letter 294. More
explicating the context, and not really editorial comments.

 > (Un)fortunately,
 > footnotes are doable in HTML but don't come off well, though I'm
 > thinking about floating sidebars.

Oh, yes! Very 'in'! What about mouse-ups?
Thanks for the other footnotes stuff.

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters 

It seems "Christopher Kreuzer" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
 >I know Tolkien used a typewriter for some of his letters. Would I be
 >right in saying that you can't do italics on them?

There was probably a typewriter somewhere that could do italics, but
it was definitely not the usual thing.

The IBM Selectric came out in the early 1960s, I think, and it was
revolutionary. Instead of moving the paper past a central point
where every key struck, the Selectric had all the characters on a
ball about 3 or 4 cm in diameter, and the ball moved horizontally
along the paper. This eliminated jams; the old key typewriters had
each character at the end of a separate lever, and a fast typist
could easily strike keys so that one was rising to the central point
before the previous one got out of the way.

I mention the Selectric because the type balls were detachable.
Various fonts were available, including at least one oblique font. I
can't recall for sure, but I think it was oblique rather than true
italics. The typist could change type balls in mid-line to change
fonts.

 >IIRC, when I
 >once used a typewriter, you had to manually push the carriage back at
 >the end of each line.

Yes, the Selectric eliminated this too.

 > The shift key made the print keys do weird things,
 >rise up by an inch or so IIRC.

As I recall, what rose was the platen, the cylinder that held the
paper. Each key lever had two characters on it, one above the other,
and which one made a mark on the paper depended on whether the
platen was in its normal or shifted position.

 >Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.RemoveThis@fastmail.fm> wrote:
  >> When we did word processing in college (circa
  >> 1970), we used line printers that could print only capital letters,
  >> so the capitals in titles and at the beginnings of sentences were
  >> faked by striking the letter three times, i.e. bold face.
 >
 ><boggle> You _are_ making this up, right? Please say yes...

No, I was quite in earnest. Character codes on early Univac machines
were 6 bits, which allowed A-Z, 0-9, and the basic punctuation
marks. We had to go to 9-bit characters(*) to get lower case. Until
then there'd be no point in a printer with upper and lower case
because there's be no way to control it.

(*) Only 8 bits used, but the words were 36 bits so an 8-bit
character would be 4 and a half to the word.

I remember in the early 1970s we got hold of a Fototronic photo-
typesetter from (I think) Harris Intertype. It cost in six figures,
probably close to a million dollars in today's money. Basically it
was a laser printer, except I think it used highly focused
conventional light rather than a laser. It was huge -- the operator
walked inside it. But it took directions from the computer, and
could do pretty much anything an HP Laserjet can do today, for less
than a percent of the cost.

   >>> 4) Carpenter uses '[ ]' for editorial explanation in the letter. So
   >>> editorial intrusions (though minimal in the letters)
  >>
  >> Hmm-- can you give an example? I don't yet know /Letters/ by heart
  >> but I don't remember any Carpenteriana in the middle of any letter.
 >
 >As I said, _very_ minimal. I only noticed because I studied Letter 22 in
[snip]
 >replacing it with '....' instead. Other examples are in Letter 294. More

Thanks. I see them now.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://OakRoadSystems.com" target="_blank">http://OakRoadSystems.com</a>
Tolkien FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://Tolkien.slimy.com" target="_blank">http://Tolkien.slimy.com</a> (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html" target="_blank">http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html</a>
FAQ of the Rings: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm</a>
Encyclopedia of Arda: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm" target="_blank">http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm</a>
more FAQs: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm" target="_blank">http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Question on "Sam as chief hero" issue in Tolkiens letters