(1) Simple Insertion.
The purpose of an insertion is to add material not present in the
original inscription, either during the course of composition or on review.
Wherever possible, authors generally interline such additions, with or
without a caret or guideline. If the editor always specifies the use of a
caret,[12] the reader has a guarantee
that the position of the interlineation has been fixed by the author and has
not been subject to editorial interpretation; thus it may be that an editor will
wish to distinguish those interlineations authorially marked by a caret from
those that are unmarked.
- habit] interlined with a caret
- habit] interl. w. caret
- habit] interlined
- habit] interl.
Abbreviations of the sort illustrated are necessary to conserve space and
may be used so long as they do not proliferate past the point of easy
recognition of their meaning. Readers ought not to be forced to memorize
more than a few conventions to be able to use an apparatus freely.
On the other hand, experience suggests that there is seldom any
significance in whether or not a caret has been marked. In theory a writer
might more frequently omit a caret (or add one) depending upon whether
he were interlining during the course of composition or revising on
review—in which rare case an editor should observe the
distinction—but otherwise when the positions of interlineations are not
subject to dispute, perhaps the specification may be thought not worth the
space; hence if an editor chooses ultimate condensation, all mention of
carets or guidelines may be dispensed with except when the editor thinks
the information useful, as when a caret has been moved to another place,
or has been misplaced, or a guideline has been extended to accommodate
an addition, or a caret has intentionally deleted some mark of punctuation.
If carets are not to be noted except in special cases, a general statement to
the effect should be made.
Not all insertions are interlined. William James, for example, often
added a word or more in the left margin before the word to follow instead
of interlining the insertion at the end of the line above after the immediately
preceding word. If there were no room for an
interlineation on the last line of a page, he might place the addition below
the line in the bottom margin, or tailspace. Unless a specific value exists
in noting the exact position of such additions that are not simple
interlineations, there seems to be little point in specifying marginal addition
(except for footnotes or sidenotes or lengthy passages) whether to the left
or the right of the line, so long as the position in the text is not in question;
and the same with additions placed below a line—especially since a
reader has no ready way of knowing the lineation of the manuscript that
produced the divergences. They are best lumped, then, under the general
head of
insertions, although
additions is as
acceptable: either word—like
interlineation—signifies that
the item was not written currently with the text on the line. Additions may
be made in manuscript to simple insertions with or without guidelines.
When a guideline is extended, the evidence can be
described: very great] 'great'
interl. w. caret and guideline extended
to included added 'very'. However, since the fact of addition is the
only important one, a condensed form without evidence can be written:
very great]
interl.; 'very'
added.
Note: There should be no need to write: very great] 'great'
interl.; 'very' added (or) 'great'
interl.; interl. 'very' added (or)
'great' interl.; preceded by interl. added 'very'.
In formulaic terms (described below) one could write: very great] 'very
[added] great' interl. Sometimes this formulaic
method is useful, and it should always be kept in mind as a possibility, but
in the present case it saves no space and is not greatly superior in clarity to
the recommended entry. In this entry in the text one should notice that the
word interl. necessarily applies to the whole lemma and
cannot be associated only with great or with
very as separate entities. For the font of punctuation in these
entries, see note on p. 246.
Other forms of insertions may be noted as:
- naturally] final 'ly' interl.
- nothing&c.rat;] comma inserted
- these] final 'se' added
- nothing&c.rat;] comma inserted after MS
'naught'
Note: By using the common convention of the inferior caret to
emphasize the lack of punctuation in the copy-text, the fact that the inserted
comma noted in MS is a variant is perfectly clear and its position is
established without ambiguity, although if one preferred one could write:
MS comma inserted. (No need exists here to complicate
matters by the convention of the single dagger: †000.00 nothing&c.rat;]
comma inserted, but the double dagger would be acceptable:
††000.00 nothing,] comma inserted.) On the other hand,
if the word as well as the punctuation had been variant, it would be
economical to write: †000.00 nothing&c.rat;] comma inserted
instead of quoting MS naught as in the examples in this
series, although again ††000.00 naught,] comma inserted
is a possibility owing to the closeness of MS naught to
book-text nothing.
