The usual practice for the tagging of place names in a transcribed text 
is (in our project and, I believe, in TEI P5), to tag the instance of 
the name or naming-string in the text with <placeName>, and use an @key 
or @ref to point to an entry in a gazeteer made up of <place> elements. 
So far so good. What do you do, however, if the string in your text that 
you want to link to a <place> in your gazeteer is not a place-name per 
se? Would it be abuse to use <placeName> in this case? I have assumed 
not, but it has recently been suggested to me that something like:

<placeName ref="#London">his home</placeName>
or
<placeName ref="#Rome">the metropolis</placeName>
or
<placeName ref="#Aphrodisias">the city</placeName>
or (for persons)
<persName ref="#Xanthippe">his wife</persName>
or
<persName ref="#anon-wife-of-Diogenes">uxor eius</persName>

would be abuse. To me tagging like this makes sense, and in the absence 
of an alternative tag to 'placeName' I'll continue doing it. But does 
anyone strenuously object, or have an alternative suggestion?

G

--
Dr Gabriel BODARD
(Epigrapher & Digital Classicist)

Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1388
Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 2980

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/
http://www.currentepigraphy.org/




-- 
Dr Gabriel BODARD
(Epigrapher & Digital Classicist)

Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL

Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1388
Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 2980

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/
http://www.currentepigraphy.org/