I've heard many a story about the heroism of Holford-Strevens. I was working with OUP-USA, who has much less experience with critical editions, and so he wasn't involved. I recently enjoyed the erudition in his Very Short Introduction to the History of Time.
I've also found the (Xe)TeX hyphenation for ancient Greek to be very good. But I can't remember whether I'm using the standard patterns. I remember that there is a CTAN or TUGBoat submission that improves on the widely used Greek patterns, and I converted that to unicode for XeTeX at one point, and may still be using it. Ironically, the handiest guide to Greek hyphenation I know of is the 39th edition of Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at OUP. I found an expensive used copy, and I believe the material on typesetting foreign languages is absent from later editions. Jud On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 03:20:04PM +0100, John Was wrote: > Well I'm still in the Press once a week at least (for choir practice!) so I > shall make sure these comments reach the right ears. They correspond, > unfortunately to my own impression. Leofranc Holford-Strevens works > heroically on critical editions but he is the sole in-house editor left and > can't possibly handle them all. I think he is pretty well full-time on > large projects with extensive commentary (and still finds time to publish > and lecture extensively on an astonishing range of topics). > > Getting back to TeX-related matters, the hyphenation patterns available in > XeTeX (even to 'plain' users like myself) are an enormous help, even if I > disagree with the English at frequent points (the Latin rarely lets me > down, aside from a few rogues - is hucusque one? - which I guess are > analagous to Knuth's 'manuscript' in refusing to comply with the > algorithms). No one bothers to read people like Priscian on what should be > done with Greek and Latin, and no one at OUP involved in passing proofs > would have the faintest idea about this subject. Neither, alas, do authors > - with the Dictionary of Medieval Latin (which I have just relinquished > with completion of Fascicule XIII in the middle of letter 'R') it was left > entirely to me, and I fear that laxity in this matter will pervade future > fascicules as it did in some of those that preceded my involvement. When I > asked the compilers to keep a look-out for any bad hyphenations that I > might have missed in perusing and correcting the proofs, they asked me to > explain the rules! > > John > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: <jherr...@allegheny.edu> > To: <xetex@tug.org> > Sent: 23 October 2010 15:05 > Subject: Re: [XeTeX] (Xe)LaTeX output in a non-(Xe)LaTeX scholarly > community > > >> Yes, as you would guess, the copy-editor marked up my files by hand >> and sent me the hard copy. >> >> Recent OUP critical editions in Greek prose could use a lot more >> copy-editing; I would assert that their production standards in this >> area have fallen drastically in the last decade. We have new editions >> of the Greek orators Demosthenes and Lysias in the Oxford Classical >> Text series, all filled with rampant flaws in hyphenation and line >> numbering in the apparatus. Reviews have also identified numerous >> slips of a more substantial nature, that seem to suggest very little >> copy-editing is happening on these in house. It seems that OUP has >> adopted new modes of production for these critical editions that >> create these problems, and authors (and copy-editors?) don't regularly >> take the time to fix it all. I know in the case of my book the >> copy-editor, who was otherwise very attentive, didn't seem to have >> looked at the Greek at all. >> >> The other major series of critical texts in Greek (and Latin), on the >> other hand, the Bibliotheca Teubneriana, has been shuffled from one >> publisher to another in the last decade. It's now in the hands of De >> Gruyter, who seems devoted to its revitalization. They're requiring >> all editors to submit camera-ready-copy, and recommending that they >> use Critical Edition Typesetter (<http://www.karas.ch/cet/>). I have >> the impression they only really care about the appearance of the CRC, >> though, and wouldn't really care if authors prefer other typesetting >> systems. >> >> Jud Herrman >> >> >> On 2010-10-23, John Was >> <john....@ntlworld.com> wrote: >>> OUP will normally be amenable if saving money is in prospect! I think >>> the >>> barrier here has always been the copy-editing process (now more >>> vulnerable >>> since house style is not seen as so important and indeed there is no >>> longer >>> any copy-editing department at OUP). A critical edition will normally >>> require a rather small amount of copy-editing, though there is still the >>> introduction and commentary to consider - but if a TeX-savvy author is >>> willing to implement those copy-editing changes and suggestions s/he >>> agrees >>> with, there is no real difficulty. The copy-editor would then presumably >>> work by pen(cil) on a draft PDF printout in the traditional way (or by >>> annotating the PDF electronically, which can be tedious). >>> >>> Or of course one can simply trust the author not to make any mistakes at >>> all, and forgo copy-editing. Even twenty years ago this was mentioned as >>> a >>> possibility at OUP but no one dared to do it in my time there. >>> >>> But I hope this doesn't become too much of a trend or I'll have to look >>> for >>> something else to do! In the meantime, I must dust down my old brown OCT >>> of >>> Hyperides... >>> >>> John >>> >> >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------- >> Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: >> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex