The following are student testimonials from Victoria Burke’s Winter 2022 Book History class at the University of Ottawa
Marita posted Apr 11, 2022
I had a very pleasant and enriching experience with the Trifler glossing exercise! It was a very unique and fun way to engage the class in person and online, which always helps diversify the learning experience in a lecture focused class like this one.
This was the first time I annotated an 18th-century text (or any text for that matter), but I have always wondered about the process. I imagine scholars would have to put a lot of thought and effort into researching the meaning of one single word. This would probably mean looking for multiple appearances of a word in different texts or understanding the context of the period in question. Either way, there is certainly a lot of work put into the annotations we see in our textbooks, so it was a great experience to get a glimpse into what work on the other side looks like.
For me, I found that a lot of team effort goes into the process and sometimes thinking outside the box! For example, there were a lot of words where I thought:‘Yes, of course I know what this word means,’ but these words often mean something different in the 18th century than they do now. So, it was interesting to see how these words change across time. Additionally, some words had multiple meanings attached to them, so I found it challenging to try to decipher which meaning was associated with the word used in the context of the entire letter. Sorta like solving a puzzle! All in all, I really enjoyed the experience and I hope other students also got the chance to learn from the glossing process as well.
Teresa Mciver posted Apr 11, 2022
Glossing and annotating a text was something that I have rarely done, with the only equivalent being annotating texts for class. Personally, annotating texts can be annoying at times as it requires me to slow down and really read each word, but for this exercise it did not seem as daunting. The idea of glossing over an 18th century text to find words that I do not understand or think that other individuals would not understand seemed like a lot more fun, rather than regularly annotating a text. I believe the fact that the task was for another person and not myself pushed me to put in more consideration for the how much effort I put in. I also believe that since the text was online it enabled a different version of annotating, as annotating is usually done on paper with pen or pencil. Having the texts online seemed to make it more accessible as researching the words definitions was easier to do, along with making a note of it on the document. Going through the letter allowed for a deeper understanding of the text and what Penelope Spindle was attempting to say to the Madame.
I think that glossing for texts is a very beneficial activity, especially for earlier works of literature as it helps the reader understand it much better. This activity really proved to me that if glossing and annotating was done more often for online versions of texts, I would personally understand some texts a lot better.
Marieke Jansen-Young posted Apr 7, 2022
I found the Trifler glossing exercise to be very interesting and made me think critically about language transformation. I have a minor in linguistics, so I find the subject fascinating.
When I read the text, I understood most of the words, or could figure it out from context, so I had to look a little deeper at the individual words to find what glosses might be useful for future readers. While I had a vague understanding of the words, they were often used in a slightly different sense than they are today. For example, my section had “coquets” as a verb, which Oxford Dictionary defined as “To act like a coquette or coquet; to flirt playfully and insincerely with a person. While I understood the term as noun, this verbal meaning was slightly different. Another interesting one was “to dress at [someone]” meaning to dress up to gain someone’s attention or interest. As a linguistic exercise, this was interesting to see the longevity of these terms but still how their meaning has changed. The attention to detail required for this exercise helped me to understand how meticulous scholars need to be when putting together a scholarly edition of a work.
I also found it interesting to use Oxford English Dictionary. This too is a physical book that has been converted to a digital database, like how we have discussed in the articles. This makes it much more searchable, in contrast to having to go through several volumes to look up different words. It also means that the dictionary can be more expansive in giving definitions and examples, since it is not constrained by page limits.
Anika McDonald posted Apr 7, 2022
Glossing may seem like a tedious and perhaps unimportant task, but we have glossing and the dedicated people who do it to thank for any confusion or lack of understanding certain words.
There are endless words in the English words and words are constantly subject to changing, having more than one meaning, or the meaning of the word being different depending on the time period, place and person.
When documenting and analyzing old letters from an entirely different century than ours, it’s important to note that their language (even if it’s the same language we speak) can have its differences.
I noticed from reading and glossing the letter that there were many words I was not familiar with, words that are less known, uncommon or just no longer used in today’s English language. There were also a few words where I thought I knew what they meant, but it turns out the writer had a different meaning of the word. Had I not looked up the definition of these words, I could have misinterpreted the writer’s work causing a domino affect of misunderstanding. Without extensive glossing, readers are forced to interpret the writer’s words, making for a different perspective of what the writer was trying to convey. With glossing, it prevents any misinformed conclusions of the work and diminishes confusion, making for a more clear and concise reading experience.
Student posted Apr 7, 2022
The experience of glossing the letter was really fascinating! I have grown so accustomed to reading glossed literary texts, but I have not put much thought into the actual process of glossing. Of course, scholars have to work carefully to research word usage, allusions, and other elements of older texts to ensure that unfamiliar readers can understand the content, but I had not spent much time thinking about the sheer amount of effort that must go into this process!
I always enjoy working with the Oxford English Dictionary to examine the different usages of words through time, so I found it fascinating to put those research methods to use in a whole new way. As another student noted, it is so interesting to see the change in a word’s meaning over the centuries—sometimes there is a word that is still used today, but the context of its 18th-century usage is entirely different. It is important to make note of these transformations when glossing. Also, there were some words that made me stumble a little bit and wonder which of the several definitions provided in the OED was in fact the one that Lennox had intended; some words have so many different usages that it can be difficult to decipher the correct one. I realize now how complicated the process of glossing can be and how meticulous scholars have to be when providing definitions and explanations!
As a last point, I know very little about eighteenth-century literature in general, so it was really interesting to learn a little bit more about the period and its literary culture (and specifically the circulation of periodicals that was prominent in the time). As well, I am very interested in women’s writing, so hearing about Lennox’s life and work was particularly illuminating!
Emilie Schieman posted Apr 6, 2022
I found the experience of glossing to be a really fun and enriching learning experience. I found I had to put myself in other people’s shoes to figure out which words to add footnotes for. Having had some experience with older texts, I have a good foundation for understanding the language so other than a couple words, I had to think about which words could potentially stump another reader that hasn’t encountered 18th century texts before. I learned that a lot of thought has to go into a social edition of a text in order to make it accessible to everyone. Editions like this are so important to make this type of knowledge accessible to people outside of the academic fields so it was a great experience to get to work on a small part of this project. It also made me realize how much hard work goes into collaborating on projects like this and if we can all make a small contribution many more projects like The Lady’s Museum project could eventually come into existence. It was really interesting to be a part of the other side of a text like this because studying literature we often encounter footnotes and refer to them but never have I been the one to write them so it was a neat experience.