Collection Process

Greetings,

I thought it would be useful to describe my collection technique for the words which I am putting into my lexicon. This will enable people to understand the process of word collection and see that I am not just collecting them from random sources claiming to be from the correct period. The process which follows has four steps involved in it.

The first step is to select the source from which the words are to come. The original stipulation for documents to qualify was that they had to come from the period of Elizabeth I's reign, however I have refined things a little more an am only using sources from the 1590's for a little more focus. In this document selection I aim to get as close to the original document as possible. A pdf format facsimile of the original is the best in this particular instance even if the readability is a little lacking in places.

The second step is to extract the words from the document. A special note needs to be made here that I am only extracting those words which are spelled differently from their modern counter-parts, have a different meaning from their modern counter-parts, or are what would be called "difficult" words, those which for the modern audience would cause issue. These words are first recorded in a hard-copy form, written to paper. First in a book and then on loose-leaf paper. The former for collection, the second to start collation. Once the two hard-copies are made they are then recorded in alphabetical order electronically under the title of the document. This is the longest part of the process.

The third step in the is to integrate these words into the lexicon, remembering to highlight those "difficult" words which have been found in the search. These words are stored alphabetically by the modern word. Once this process has been completed then I look for the definitions of the "difficult" words and those with different meanings additional or separate from their modern ones. These meanings are stored to be added into the lexicon later on.

This is a process which takes quite some time, hence this project continuing as long as it has. It is also for this reason that my updates which have been printed recently have such large gaps between them. Regardless, I hope that due to the time taken with this process that a reasonably accurate recording of the words from the period is made.

Cheers,

Henry.