From scribe at crosswire.org  Fri Jun 11 17:39:35 2010
From: scribe at crosswire.org (Troy A. Griffitts)
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:39:35 -0700
Subject: [osis-core] manual <rdg>
Message-ID: <4C12D747.1020805@crosswire.org>

Just wanted to throw out this manual correction so it is logged somewhere.

The manual states that <rdg> is for text variants and gives this example:

<verse osisID="NRSV.Song.2.1">I am a rose
      <note osisRef="NRSV.Song.2.1 at s[rose]">Heb
           <rdg>crocus</rdg>
      </note> of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.</verse>


Besides being overly confusing with osisRef provided even though the
note is inline, this is certainly not a textual variant.

<rdg> has possible values for "type":

alternate
variant

I believe the example is perfectly legitimate and helpful-- though I
would remove the osisRef attribute to show simplicity.

What I believe to be incorrect is the wording:

"Bibles and other ancient works frequently differ in different surviving
manuscripts. Sometimes this variation
must be represented in printed, electronic, or other editions, even in
translation. For such cases, OSIS
provides the rdg ("reading") element, corresponding to the TEI element
of the same name. This element is
used to identify each variation of a particular portion of the text, and
may identify each variant with the set of
textual witnesses that support it and with a type such as primary,
secondary, etc.

"The rdg element contains the variation from the main text and appears
in a note element as follows:"

Then follows with the Rose of Sharon example.  The example obviously
does not show a 'variation from the main text' in term of the
description paragraph preceding.

The manual also goes on to say:

"The rdg element has several pre-defined value for type:
   alternate: A reading of approximately equal probability compared to
others.
   variant: A reading that varies from the accepted tradition."

"alternate" doesn't have anything to do with text variants, nor
probabilities compared to the body text.
The example shows a perfect case for "alternate", which has nothing to
do with ancient text variants.

Another example would be:

<verse osisID="Gen.29.17">
  Leah had weak<note type="explanation">Or <rdg>delicate</rdg></note>
eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful.
</verse>



Troy