[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Depends on how consistent how frequent and when it was. However generally I'd leave it original.

Rule 1: Consistent. Same global rules, except per speaker. A particular character might have a dialect. That should be internally consistent.

Gosh, yeah, if there's one thing that tends to drive me batty it's inconsistencies.

Rule 2: The black bird. The Maltese Falcon comes to mind. Some separate words that exist as compound are not the same thing, so no "Replace All" click in editor. You know about that, but some are subtle. Like into is still sometimes in to and sometimes can be validly some times.

Yep, I avoid "replace all." Sometimes and some times are definitely words I'm aware of.

Rule 3: if it's frequent old usage in the entire book leave it as it is, like Shakespeare or some other things it's what it is.

And that's why, if I do any Jerry Todds or Poppy Otts, the to-days and to-morrows will probably stand. Because anyone else who loved the series would expect to see them there because of the usage frequency.

Rule 4: If things like to-day are infrequent and it seems like poor proof reading you can silently "fix it", but maybe not if a pre-1914 print run.

Frequency is definitely one of the things I consider before a fix. One use of to-day hardly seems worth preserving.

Rule 6: Minor Inconsistent punctuation and spelling, if you are really sure, can be silently fixed, but see 5.

I did one in Dapple Gray. The word trys showed up ONCE, but elsewhere in the book, tries was always used. I didn't think to list it in notes, and won't bother now, but that seemed an area of spelling inconsistency that could be fixed without noting it.

Archaic spelling is one of those things that I have questions about though. I've actually found examples where, if you hit dictionary lookup, you get an entirely different definition than what was meant! Those, I am inclined to correct and make note of, at least if I have to hunt through pages of Google search to find said archaic spelling listed anywhere!

In a children's book, I don't think you can or should expect that kind of effort by a child wanting to look up a word. Mind you, I'm talking about the truly obscure spellings. If an archaic spelling is easy to find, let the child look it up! It's vocabulary building.

Rule 7: Don't Transatlantic edit. Establish if it's using British, US, Canadian, South African, Australian or NZ rules. Note that UK and Ireland today and in the past does use either double or single quotes for dialogue. Irish publishing more so, but for an aside the un-spaced pair of em dashes is largely USA and UK & Ireland uses (and always did) a pair of en dashes surrounded by spaces.

You want to be a bit careful about "always did". I can think of FOUR vintage UK books on my shelves, all by different authors, that use un-spaced em-dashes and there may be more. One title, a 1937 first edition of Silver Snaffles by Primrose Cumming, got a modern softcover reprinting in 2007 by Fidra Books and the modern reprint uses em-dashes WITH spaces!

Anyway, a different one of those four titles should be MobileRead eligible in 2024 as the author died in 1953.

But what do you think about American authors using British spelling? That is very, very common with vintage books! I've also seen where later editions may change the spelling to the American style. So is that more of a publisher discretionary thing or should such spelling be preserved as is? I'm thinking the latter as the safest bet.

At any rate, I think your rules are quite sensible!