Hi all,
a little question about <abbr>/<expan> usage, hope you haven't had
enough about it already (and that it doesn't look too naive to all the
TEI experts out there). I'm transcribing a medieval manuscript, and
started by using <abbr> with the expan attribute, like this:

<abbr expan="mannum" type="">mannū</abbr>

I then realized that this way it was going to be very difficult to
follow editorial practice (highlighting expanded letters using italics)
and that it will require a considerable effort to update my
transcription to the forthcoming TEI P5 standard. I considered using
entities as suggested in the TEI guidelines (6.4.5), but I don't like
very much this approach and the P5 transition problem would persist. So
I thought about using <abbr> and <expan> in the same way as the
<add><del> pair, i.e. like this:

mann<abbr>ū</abbr><expan>um</expan>

I can now write a simple style sheet according to the kind of diplomatic
edition I want to output from my text, keeping the content of <abbr> "as
is" for a conservative edition, or printing the content of <expan> in
italics for a more interpretative one. Furthermore, I will be able to
make my document P5 compliant with a simple search and replace of <abbr>
and </expan>. So, is there any disadvantage I didn't think of? Could I
use the same "trick" with <sic> and <corr>?

BTW, what happened to the manuscript transcription SIG? I've been
waiting for an announcement but either missed it or it never appeared to
the list. Would be another appropriate place where to discuss about this
and other (many!) problems.

Ciao

--
Roberto Rosselli Del Turco      roberto.rossellidelturco at unito.it
Dipartimento di Scienze         rosselli at ling.unipi.it
del Linguaggio                  Then spoke the thunder  DA
Universita' di Torino           Datta: what have we given?  (TSE)

  Hige sceal the heardra,     heorte the cenre,
  mod sceal the mare,       the ure maegen litlath.  (Maldon 312-3)