Monthly Archives: March 2013

Lost in Transcription

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I choose to transcribe a page concerning the role of Judges in the court system.  The page looked rather simple–having had experience with the Shelley-Godwin archives in Technoromanticism–but I found it far more of a challenge than I anticipated.  Like Charity, I ran into some difficulties deciphering Bentham’s handwriting.  There were a number of words which I struggled to make out and had to leave as questionable if not unclear.  However, nothing bothered me quite so much as this particular word:

Screen Shot 2013-03-03 at 11.19.12 AM

My boyfriend and I puzzled over it for a long time, but were unable to come up with a satisfactory transcription.  I’m really hoping that someone can suggest something so that it I can stop obsessing about it.  If it helps, it is used in the following contexts:

1.  ”But [word here] who are designed by them Judges may be chosen by the People of their district”

2.  ”No harm will come from the connection which the [word here] may have in the country.”

I’m really hoping someone can see something that makes sense that alluded me.

Collaborative Transcriptions

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I chose to transcribe and encode JB/051/376/002 for the Transcribe Bentham assignment (you should feel free to tackle pages 1 or 3 of the same folio – they are up for grabs!). Since I completed my transcribing/encoding process at work yesterday, when I came upon a particularly baffling phrase, I pulled in others from my office to help. This only happened a few times (I am still feeling fairly proud of myself for the relative ease with which I deciphered Bentham’s script), but the following phrase/word stumped us all:

Screen Shot 2013-03-01 at 8.45.37 PM

To clarify, the ENTIRE rest of the manuscript is written in English, without a whiff of another language in it (some of his others are written in French, I noticed), so I tried word after word after word (along with Nigel and another officemate). However, after many minutes of simply staring at the characters, willing them into some sort of coherency, I was finally forced to utilize the “?” tag, indicating a ‘questionable reading,’ and entering the phrase “In places.” So, you can imagine my eagerness when I woke up this morning with a response from Transcribe Bentham that my manuscript had been reviewed – I immediately went to the page to see what the “right” answer was – and my transcription had been changed to “Non placel.” Non placel? I thought, That’s not English, no wonder I couldn’t figure it out. Since I had involved two others in my efforts, I decided to update them via Twitter, including the 668k hashtag. Aaaaaand, check out my Storify below to see the resulting convo (it’s better if you click View as Slideshow – also, my post continues on underneath):

  1. Fri, Mar 01 2013 11:27:29

  2. @caritasity @trueXstory @boswells731 Probably “non placet”, literally “it does not please” in Latin.

    Fri, Mar 01 2013 11:29:30

  3. @BonifaceVIII @caritasity @boswells731 Ah, Latin. It gets you every time. ‘non placet’ makes much more sense.

    Fri, Mar 01 2013 11:30:37

  4. @trueXstory @BonifaceVIII @boswells731 – not necessarily in this context, though…? besides @TranscriBentham made the call. :P

    Fri, Mar 01 2013 11:37:08

  5. @caritasity @trueXstory @BonifaceVIII @boswells731 starting to think that ‘non placet’ is right! Will revise (thanks for the correction!)

    Fri, Mar 01 2013 12:09:04

  6. Fri, Mar 01 2013 12:09:18

  7. @BonifaceVIII – nice catch on the latin! i just wish i hadn’t spent a half-hour staring at that phrase with my english-only eyes. :P

    Fri, Mar 01 2013 12:20:42

Although most participants probably transcribe/encode individually, I couldn’t help but make this a collaborative activity, which seems in completely in alignment with the spirit of Transcribe Bentham (and the field of DH in general). Beyond the implicit communal nature of the project and the built-in collaboration between transcriber/encoder and the TB Editor, I was able to collaborate in person during my transcription process and digitally afterwards. The speedy response on Twitter from the TB Editor (I’m guessing Dr. Causer?) was both unexpected and gratifying, rendering the Project itself even more transparent. While I was initially skeptical of such an activity (Encoding? Isn’t that why I opted for topic modeling in Technoromanticism instead – to avoid this?), I’ve now concluded that Transcribe Bentham is something I’m definitely going to share with others and hope to revisit when I have more time (post-May!). It’s scholarly work saturated with social interaction, which is honestly how I like my academia served.