1. been
As a part of his attempt to demonstrate that all of Folio
Lear was set by B, Cauthen presented the following table as
evidence that B's preferential spelling was bin.
|
A Spellings
|
B Spellings
|
Lear Spellings
|
| beene (13) |
beene (4) |
beene (8) |
| bene (3) |
bene (6) |
bene (1) |
| bin (3) |
bin (24) |
bin (19) |
When viewed in relation to copy, however, B's treatment of
been cannot be defined in terms of a single preferential form.
These statistics show that B had no single preferential spelling of
been. In fact, he actively employed, that is followed from
copy
and introduced against copy, three forms:
bin,
bene,
and
beene. Although B does not have a single positive
preference, he consistently rejects the
been and
byn
spellings which stand in copy. In the case of each of his acceptable
spellings, B adopts about half the number of any given form found in copy.
Although B's tolerance of
bin forms found in copy is as high
as
that toward
bene and
beene, he introduces
bin least frequently in replacing other forms. Between
bene and
beene, B apparently prefers
bene, but the evidence is not strong. All in all,
been
is of little use in penetrating B's texts to his copy. The word serves,
however, to show the possibility of a compositor's having several operative
forms in his treatment of a given word, that is, various forms which he will
both accept, reject, and introduce in place of others found in copy.
