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2. blood (bloody)

Compositor B displays a marked preference for -oo- forms of blood and bloody. Of the 103 (+J4) -ou- forms in copy, B changes sixty-three (+J4) to -oo-. At the same time, he retains sixty-one (+J5) of the sixty-six (+J5) -oo- spellings found in copy. It is interesting to note that in spite of his clear-cut preference for -oo-, Compositor B does allow four -ou- spellings in ten to come through into his texts. In all ten plays, there are only five abberant changes of -oo- to -ou- or about one in thirteen occurrences of the word.