CT Errata Compendium

[pesco]

Discovered several new items in Book 1 (facsimile edition), regarding combat:

• p. 31: Second paragraph, sentence 7 (line 17): "Surprise continues until it is lost, and may thus continue indefinitely." (letter 'u' damaged in scan)
• p. 32: Line 6: "short [or] close"
• p. 32: Line 10: "option of the [referee]"
• p. 32: Line 11: "[on the] situation" (missing space)
• p. 32: Line 13: "c[o]ntact" (letter 'o' damaged in scan)
• p. 35: Section "Expertise", paragraph "Parrying": "A character may use his expertise level in his brawling or blade weapon [skill] as a negative DM..."
• p. 47: Range Matrix, row "Claws", column "Wound Inflicted" should be 2D. Next row should be "Teeth, +2, 0, no, no, no, 2D" (errata applied to wrong row).

The following need clarification, guidance appreciated:

• pp. 30, 33: The listing "Combat Procedure" on p. 30 does not state clearly whether all targets and attacks should be declared before any throws are made. The same applies to the paragraph "Basic Required Throw" on p. 33, second sentence: "He or she must then make a basic throw...". Is the word "then" here meant to imply that the throw is made immediately after the target is declared? This would give an advantage in that attacks could be declared based on knowledge of prior throws despite all attacks conceptually occuring at the same time.
• p. 33: First paragraph: In what order should the characters (player and non-player) state their movement status?
• p. 35: Section "Expertise", paragraph "Parrying": (a long gun) "is treated as a brawling weapon (a cudgel)". However, Cudgels are classified as polearms, not brawling weapons in section "Combat Equipment" on p. 37. Should the parenthesis on p. 35 be changed to "(a club)"? Otherwise it is unclear which skill to use (Brawling or Cudgel). NB, 1977 edition: "... uses the gun as a brawling weapon (as a club, for example)."

See https://github.com/pesco/traveller-errata.

 

[pesco]

PS:

• p. 35: Section "Expertise", paragraph "Parrying": "A character may use his expertise level in his brawling or blade weapon [skill] as a negative DM..."
• pp. 30, 33: The listing "Combat Procedure" on p. 30 does not state clearly whether all targets and attacks should be declared before any throws are made. The same applies to the paragraph "Basic Required Throw" on p. 33, second sentence: "He or she must then make a basic throw...". Is the word "then" here meant to imply that the throw is made immediately after the target is declared? This would give an advantage in that attacks could be declared based on knowledge of prior throws despite all attacks conceptually occuring at the same time.
• p. 33: First paragraph: In what order should the characters (player and non-player) state their movement status?
• p. 35: Section "Expertise", paragraph "Parrying": (a long gun) "is treated as a brawling weapon (a cudgel)". However, Cudgels are classified as polearms, not brawling weapons in section "Combat Equipment" on p. 37. Should the parenthesis on p. 35 be changed to "(a club)"? Otherwise it is unclear which skill to use (Brawling or Cudgel). NB, 1977 edition: "... uses the gun as a brawling weapon (as a club, for example)."

These apply to the original (1981), the rest are specific to the Facsimile Edition.

Attaching my errata PDF (also available in the github repo) for convenience/completeness.

 

[pesco]

Found two more in Book 1. The first one is LWB-specific, the second also applies to LBB1.81.

• p. 8: Paragraph "The Universal Personality Profile", line 4/5: "the common arabic numbers[;]" (semicolon damaged in scan)
• p. 9: Paragraph "Titles": "Noble titles are commonly used, even if the individual [is] not engaged in local government."

 

[pesco]

I am not a native speaker, but as far as the Internet informs me, the following two instances of a comma before "and" are incorrect, since they connect a subordinate clause.

• LWB1, LBB1.81, p. 9: Paragraph "Titles": "a noble may have some ancestral lands or fiefs and may actually have some ruling power."
• LWB1, LBB1.81, p. 11: Paragraph "Retirement": "A character may serve up to seven terms of service voluntarily and may leave after any term"

In the following, the parenthesis does not make proper grammar with its surroundings:

• LWB1, LBB1.81, p. 12: Paragraph "Aging Crisis": "This process occurs each time (and for each characteristic) a characteristic is reduced to zero." Suggestion: "This process occurs each time a characteristic is reduced to zero (and for every such characteristic)."

 

[pesco]

There are many places in Book 1 where hyphens are erroneously used instead of minus signs, in some instances separated from their surroundings by extraneous white space. Applies to the 1981 text and (universally, it seems) to the errata applied in the LWB.

NB: It can't be construed as a stylistic choice as there are also many instances of the correct (i.e. longer) glyph being used.

Hyphens used instead of minus signs:

• p. 12 Aging Table
• p. 16 Paragraph "Blade Combat"
• p. 17 Tables "Blades and Polearms" and "Guns"
• pp. 17,21-22 Skills "Air/Raft", "Ship's Boat", "Streetwise"
• pp. 18-22 Skills "Bribery", "Computer", "Forgery", "Forward Observer", "Gambling", "Xeno-Medicine", "Vacc Suit"
• p. 31 Tables "Surprise DMs" and "Terrain DMs"
• p. 32 Line 6
• p. 33 Paragraph "Evade"
• p. 36 Line 2
• p. 41 Paragraph "Folding Stocks"
• p. 46 Weapons Matrix, rows "Club", "Dagger", "Foil", "Carbine", "Rifle"
• p. 47 Range Matrix, rows "Cutlass", "Body Pistol", "Submachinegun"

Extra white space:

• pp. 17,21-22 Skills "Air/Raft", "Ship's Boat", "Streetwise"

PS: Haven't checked Books 2 and 3, so I would expect more instances there.

 

[aramis]

There are many places in Book 1 where hyphens are erroneously used instead of minus signs, in some instances separated from their surroundings by extraneous white space. Applies to the 1981 text and (universally, it seems) to the errata applied in the LWB.

NB: It can't be construed as a stylistic choice as there are also many instances of the correct (i.e. longer) glyph being used.

Hyphens used instead of minus signs:

American English actually makes no distinction between the two (hyphen and minus sign) prior to Unicode. The distinction you're making is irrelevant. The longer dashes — en-dash and em-dash — are never used mathematically and are replacable by 2 or 3 hyphens in typewritten text.
In fact, almost all programming contexts do not recognize the typographic minus sign as a minus sign; the hyphen-minus of ASCII serves both rolls.

Plus extra white space:

• pp. 17,21-22 Skills "Air/Raft",

Air/raft has no need for internal white-space, it's a direct lift from a literary use. Nor do other slash delimited hyphenates (the slash is serving in the role of a hyphen for a compound word).

 

[pesco]

American English actually makes no distinction between the two (hyphen and minus sign) prior to Unicode.

Apologies, this is not meant to sound harsh, but you're wrong. As I said, there are many instances in the text that use the correct glyph. This is a typography thing, not a language or encoding thing. Though ASCII and typewriters are to blame for a lot of the confusion, I guess.

Air/raft has no need for internal white-space, it's a direct lift from a literary use. Nor do other slash delimited hyphenates (the slash is serving in the role of a hyphen for a compound word).

I meant that in each of those entries, there is an instance of a hyphen/minus confusion plus it is also separated from the adjacent character by some white space that does not belong there.

 

[McPerth]

Discussions about air rafts, while interesting, don't belong to this thread and have been moved to this new thread

 

[pesco]

I finally took a moment to look at "Github Pages". As a result my errata collection is now easy to browse on the web.

https://pesco.github.io/traveller-errata/

I'm still looking for input (as authoritative as possible) about any items listed under "Status Uncertain" as well as "Unclear or Confusing". So if you know something that I don't, let me know. I'm just a motivated amateur here...

NB: So far I have been working with the Facsimile Edition only, so my stuff picks up just where the Consolidated Errata file of this thread's OP left off.

 

[pesco]

• [LWB1, LBB1.81] p. 17, line 3: Missing indent on first line of new paragraph.

 

[pesco]

• [LWB1, LBB1.81] p. 15, Acquired Skills Tables: Column titled "Merchant", should be "Merchants" to match tables on p. 14, paragraph title under "Career Types" on p. 13, and mention under "Enlistment" on p. 9.

 

[pesco]

• [LWB1, LBB1.81] p. 17, line 1: Not adjusted (filled) to full length.

 

[Axe]

Concerning commas.

There are very few hard rules for commas. Even the hard rules can be different for each teacher, institution, publication, publisher, editor, or even time period the work was written.

Commas are kind of .. an artform.

Commas are placed to emphasize a word or idea, to create a pause, to attempt better clarity, or many other reasons.

The uses of the commas as listed are not truly "wrong". The uses are more of a writing style type of thing.

There's a reason English is often considered one of the most confusing languages to learn/master.

 

[pesco]

There are very few hard rules for commas. Even the hard rules can be different for each teacher, institution, publication, publisher, editor, or even time period the work was written.

I'm aware of the difficulties. I made an effort to look up multiple sources on this particular case but of course can't be certain.

If you don't mind me asking, do you have a background in this kind of thing?

Trying to find further information on it, it does appear that while the general rule is that dependent clauses don't need a comma, and modern style favors syntactic use of commas as opposed to "pause goes here", it can still be used in the latter mode to break up comlex sentences. I think the first one I listed matches that, so I'll strike it from my list.

Reads clearer with comma: "a noble may have some ancestral lands or fiefs, and may actually have some ruling power."

In the second case, the dependent clause is pretty short, so I'd say it's...

Better without the comma: "A character may serve up to seven terms of service voluntarily and may leave after any term"

What do you think?

 

[Axe]

Education, but I chalk the bulk of any knowledge to work experience (countless reports, proposals, rebuttals, declarations,...).

No joke. I've attended a few meetings that included lengthy discussions about the use of commas. I found it ridiculous when the discussions became heated.

The point I intended to convey was simply that the use of commas should be given a broad berth.

 

[RossWinn]

I am reminded of the great James Nicoll “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” and that grammar is similarly offensive.

 

[spank]

Going over some if the ship's prices I noticed this error in the Facsimile edition,
when updating the text for the Yacht the price was inadvertently changed from 59.057 to 59.097

 

[pesco]

Going over some if the ship's prices I noticed this error in the Facsimile edition,
when updating the text for the Yacht the price was inadvertently changed from 59.057 to 59.097

Nice catch!

 

[pesco]

Reads clearer with comma: "a noble may have some ancestral lands or fiefs, and may actually have some ruling power."

In the second case, the dependent clause is pretty short, so I'd say it's...

Better without the comma: "A character may serve up to seven terms of service voluntarily and may leave after any term"

Not content to remain uneducated, I spent 14 eurobucks on a copy of the Penguin Guide to Punctuation. It divides all commas into four classes: Listing, joining, bracketing, and gapping. Both instances here are neither listing commas as there are only two items. They are not gapping commas since they do not stand for an ommission. They are not joining commas because those separate independent clauses. So if anything, these are bracketing commas which serve to delimit a "weak interruption", i.e. an additional thought that is separate from the rest of the sentence but not so much to need dashes or parentheses.

Indeed, bracketing commas are optional unless the sentence is ambiguous without them. They can be used to add clarity when needed. However, what they separate must not be an integral part of the statement. I think the second case might actually fall foul of that.

Personal opinion: "A character may serve up to seven terms of service voluntarily and may leave after any term " - the parts about the maximum number of terms and the ability to leave are arguably closely related and should form a single statement. On its own the second statement is not true, as we are reminded in the parentheses that directly follow it: A character may not leave if they roll a 12 on their reinlistment throw. But attaching the statement "may leave after any term" to the first part makes sense to explain the generally voluntary nature of enlistment. Then it makes sense to clarify the exception to that in parentheses.

I'm moving the second case to the "status uncertain" category. Ultimately it depends on the intent of the author.