Jan.24

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

This Week in Freudenfreude: Rewrite The Stars

There are undoubtedly many people out there who are interested in being public-spirited citizens, and in being a part of Team USA in some way, but who are disheartened by the current presidential administration, and who don't particularly want to be a part of anything directly related to Trump 47.

If you, or someone you know, fits that description, the clever folks at the National Archives have an opportunity that might be of interest (and we thank reader A.S. in Renton, WA for bringing it to our attention). In short, there are lots of documents on file, mostly rendered in cursive handwriting, that need to be transcribed. And there are also lots of documents that need to be tagged (that is to say, given labels that describe their content, like "Civil War," "Battles," "Antietam" and "Casualties"). So, the Archives are now aggressively promoting their "Citizen Archivist" program.

For those who might like an interesting project to work on, this seems to offer a number of advantages:

1. Contributing meaningfully to the body of knowledge used by scholars and other researchers.
   
   
2. Interacting directly with historical documents, and learning about some of the nuances and subtleties that you don't really get exposed to unless you roll up your sleeves and jump in. To take an example, do you know what it meant when a denizen of the 18th/19th centuries wrote "Monday prox.," "Monday inst.," or "Monday ult."? We'll tell you at the end of this item.
   
   
3. Doing both of these things while staying far removed from the Trump administration and, indeed, from modern political issues and discourse. The country had its issues 50, or 100, or 150 years ago, of course. But they definitely weren't carping about DEI, CRT, who can or cannot play women's sports, or the deep state.

So, we commend the Archives on their initiative, and we pass it along in case it's of interest to some readers.

Oh, and "Monday prox.," "Monday inst.," or "Monday ult." meant "next Monday," "this Monday" and "last Monday." That usage was common in the 1700s and early 1800s, was "old-fashioned" by the time of the Civil War, and fell into near-total disuse by the end of the 19th century.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)