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See the original image at slate.com —

The Impossible Art of Decoding Dead Authors' Handwriting

slate.com — For dead writers, diary pages are the best evidence scholars have of the ways their minds worked —their first thoughts on a poem or story, their innermost ambitions and fears as human beings. No one wants to get that wrong. See why the handwriting of Robert Frost, Henry D. Thoreau and others gives editors trouble.

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  • vx69, on 02/11/2008, -0/+5Upload the pages to a wiki, we can all have a go then!
    • EBFoxbat, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Or hop on that decoding-a-book capcha technology.
      • EpicSelekta, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Unless someone decided to make a bot that would deal with it by typing random letters. Then ancient manuscripts would be transcribed as "free ED drug makes you bigger so she'll want you". Oh Shakespeare, you old nut...
  • emailer33, on 02/11/2008, -13/+1Front page with 81 diggs? I thought this was supposed to be prevented.
    • EBFoxbat, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2"I thought..." thinking's not your strong suit is it?
    • ChzPlz, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Read the FAQ. http://digg.com/faq

      Digging, Burying, & Promotion
      # 1 - How many Diggs or buries does it take to promote or remove stories?
      The promotion and burying of stories is managed by an algorithm developed by Digg. There is no hard number of Diggs/buries to promote or remove a story. It's based on a sliding scale that takes several factors into consideration, such as number of Diggs, reports, time of day, topic submitted to, Digging/burying diversity, etc.
    • Sinudeity, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Its 81 diggs by folks who are NOT friends of the author.
      If it was all friends, of the authors who dugg, it would have required 400 or something odd diggs.
      Love the new system.
    • mightydavefish, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1You need a hobby in the real world.
  • jamesov89, on 02/11/2008, -4/+1the answer: literacy
  • jonesyb, on 02/11/2008, -6/+2Who really gives a *****, emailer33. It's just a ***** website.
  • EpicSelekta, on 02/11/2008, -4/+1In the article, it mentions that Carthage was a city on the coast of West Africa, when Carthage was actually in Tunisia (northern coast, and nowhere near the Atlantic). Given that, I'd doubt some of their other conclusions about Frost. Handwriting is still a bitch, though.
  • RoanokeRich, on 02/11/2008, -1/+4Dead men tell no tales.
  • glasgowm, on 02/11/2008, -0/+4They didnt even take a shot at the first paragraph

    Middlebrow! that was a away to look and Jane afraid was meant to be befrozen embarassment it was as much as they you old stumpiel! what of clukever of muteller no to ray i stood there to which your wee and heddle nephew such ....
    • Pentarix, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2I was about to suggest the same. My fiancee is doing her PhD in history, she just read it to me and commented how easy it was to read in comparison to some of the things she's found in archives. It's all about deciphering the writers pattern and then it becomes quite easy to follow.
  • koft, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2yea but sex with animals? You have to be kidding me...
  • shitthisfook, on 02/11/2008, -0/+4While a noble goal, deciphering the freeform thoughts of dead authors from many years ago really is going to be impossible a lot of the time.

    You can never fully understand the meaning behind someone's personal ramblings, there is no way to analyze that. You can jot down something of extreme importance today, and be completely stupefied when you return to it months, or even weeks later. Because what's the point of being clear and concise with something that no one else will ever read, if you're just jotting it down to get it out of your head? That happens to me occassionally when I make cryptic notes or reference many personal subjects in a quick session. Spelling errors, unexplainied abbreviations and illegible writing are abundant in everyone's personal notes that they think no one will ever see. Later on, I'd have to transcribe what I wrote down in a more readable format, because there is no way I'd understand it later on if I left it as is.

    If people have a difficult time understanding their own handwriting days later because of legibility, context, or meaning, then you know it's basically hopeless when it comes down to understanding other people's writing from years ago. You won't be able to criticize or analyze most of it.

    There's also a high chance of people assigning false meaning to things in those writings and misinterpreting them. Two people can read the same page and arrive at entirely different conclusions.
  • Sbebo, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Note to future authors: Type ***** up. That way scholars won't confuse "picktie" with "public"...
  • dolcelashes, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Dugg for including Henry David Thoreau.
  •  

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