LEMDO: Encode Disclaimers

Encode Disclaimers

Rationale

Occasionally, you will want to put some distance between yourself and a word or phrase. The TEI definition of the


                                          <soCalled>

element suggests that it contains a word or phrase for which the author or narrator indicates a disclaiming of responsibility, for example by the use of scare quotes or italics.

LEMDO’s stance is that you should generally avoid using words and phrases from which we want to distance ourselves. In critical paratexts, if you have cause to distance yourself from a word, ask if you really need to use that word or phrase.

The use of


                                          <soCalled>

is justified if you want to flag words or phrases:

that were used by previous generations of scholars

that were used in historical periods before or after the work you are editing

that were or are used in different cultural contexts than the one we are describing or speaking from

that were or are used as epithets

that are used as forms of address, honorifics, and stereotypes. (Do not tag forms of address and honorifics in a primary text when one character is using the phrase to address another character. Do tag forms of address when you are tagging an editorial comment about the honorific.)

that cannot be attributed to any particular person or group (e.g., proverbs, sayings, common expressions).

Practice

The


                                          <soCalled>

element is not permitted in primary texts. We as editors do not need to distance ourselves from words in the early modern text. If a character talks about a word as a word, tag it with


                                          <mentioned>

In critical paratexts and annotations, wrap the


                                          <soCalled>

element around words and phrases from which you want to mark distance.

Rendering Note

LEMDO will add quotation marks around any text encoded with


                                          <soCalled>

Examples

The examples given here come from (or are inspired by) editions prepared by David Bevington, Jessica Slights, and James Mardock.

Outmoded Terminology

<note type="commentary">Often called a <soCalled>bad quarto</soCalled>, the 1603 text of <title level="m">Hamlet</title> offers important clues about early performance.</note>

Ahistorical Usages

<note type="commentary">Although the nickname <soCalled>weeping willow</soCalled> did not appear in print until the eighteenth century </note>

Words or Phrases from Other Cultural Contexts

In this example, the editor (Jessica Slights) wants to put distance between her edition and both the biblical and the early modern contexts that objectify women:

<note type="commentary">The body is consistently figured as a <soCalled>vessel</soCalled> in biblical texts, and the notion of woman as the <soCalled>weaker vessel</soCalled> was a commonplace in the period.</note>

Epithets

In this example, the editor (James Mardock) wants to indicate that Hotspur is a nickname:

<p>We hear that <quote>the noble Mortimer</quote> has been taken by the Welshman, Glendower, and that the young Harry Percy, or <soCalled>Hotspur</soCalled>, whilst victorious against the Scots, is refusing to give up his prisoners to the king, probably at his uncle Worcester’s suggestion.</p>

<note type="commentary">Echoes of this scornful attack on conventional ideals of service echo throughout the play as Iago himself is designated repeatedly (and ironically) by the epithet <soCalled>honest</soCalled>.</note>

<note type="commentary">Othello’s use of the <soCalled>sweet</soCalled>



</note>

<note type="commentary">Neill proposes a pun on the epithet <soCalled>dull Moor</soCalled>.</note>

Forms of Address, Honorifics, and Stereotpyes

In annotations and critical paratexts, tag honorifics with


                                             <soCalled>

when you are foregrounding the nature of the word or phrase. Do not tag honorifics in the semi-diplomatic transcription or modern text of your play.

<note type="commentary">An honorific form of address, like <soCalled>your honor</soCalled> or <soCalled>your grace</soCalled>



</note>

<note type="commentary">
<soCalled>Coz</soCalled> can also mean almost any family relationship or acquaintance

</note>

Common Phrases or Names

Use


                                             <soCalled>

for the common names of plants. Common names of plants cannot be attributed to any one person.

<note type="commentary">See Pliny’s discussion in <title level="m">Natural History</title> of the collection of secretions from the <soCalled>balm tree</soCalled>.</note>

Compare this note, which quotes from an early modern translation of Pliny and preserves the spelling in the source:

<note type="commentary">See Pliny’s discussion in <title level="m">Natural History</title> of the collection of secretions from the<quote>Baulme tree</quote>.</note>

<note type="commentary">The idea of <soCalled>groaning with conception</soCalled> figures Othello’s belief that Desdemona has been unfaithful.</note>

<note type="commentary">This phrase echoes the proverbial <soCalled>to line one’s pockets</soCalled> and thus implies (improper) financial gain.</note>

Proverbs cannot be attributed to any one particular person or group; such is the nature of a proverb. However, you can quote the particular form of a proverb from a source like Dent’s Proverbial Language or Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language. In such a case, wrap the quoted proverb in the


                                             <quote>

element and cite Dent parenthetically.

Prosopography

Isabella Seales

Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Nicole Vatcher

Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.) in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s writing in the modernist period.

Oluwaseun Akintola

Oluwaseun Akintola is a student pursuing an English major and Psychology minor at the University of Victoria. She has had the opportunity of working for LEMDO as the recipient of the Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the summers of 2024 and 2025. Her research primarily focuses on premodern critical race theory in early modern drama, researching racial representation, and constructions of identity in Shakespeare’s plays Othello and The Merchant of Venice.

Rylyn Christensen

Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.

Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

Bibliography

Dent, R.W. Proverbial Language in English Drama Exclusive of Shakespeare, 1495–1616: An Index. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Dent, R.W. Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language: An Index. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. WSB aq146.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title	Encode Disclaimers
Type of text	Documentation
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Source	TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
Editorial declaration	n/a
Edition	Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	prgGenerated
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability	This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.