About this Abridged Concordance to the

Complete Urtext in Seven Volumes

 

This is an abridged edition of the Seven Volume Urtext Concordance.  Some of the more common words which are also of relatively little use in looking up quotes have been omitted from the Concordance (but not the base text) in order to make it smaller and faster.  Spelling has been standardized and footnotes indicating variant readings in the manuscript have been omitted to make the Concordance easier to use and “copy” from.

 

Words which are not included

 

While most of these are present in the Exhaustive Concordance Wordlist, the following words and character strings have been omitted from the Abridged Concordance Wordlist:

 

 

     ---      0        1        10       100      11       12       13       14  15       16

  17       18       19       2        20       21       22       23       24  25       26

  27       28       29       3        30       31       32       33       34  35       36

  37       38       39       4        40       41       42       43       44  45       46

  47       48       49       5        50       51       52       53       54  55       56

  57       58       59       6        60       61       62       63       64  65       66

  67       68       69       7        70       71       72       73       74  75       76

  77       78       79       8        80       81       82       83       84  85       86

  87       88       89       9        91       92       93       94       95  96       97

  98       99       a        all      also     am       an       and      another  answer   any

  are      as       ask      at       B        be       because  being    beyond  but      C

  call     can      cannot   could    created  creation D        did      do  does     E

  each     else     end      F        father   first    FL       for      forever  from     G

  get      go       goal     H        had      has      have     he       here  him      himself

  his      holiness holy     how      however  I        if       in       instant  into     is

  it       its      j        K        L        let      like     little   look     M  made

  make     makes    may      meaning  more     must     N        no       nor  not      nothing

  O        of       on       one      only     or       other    our      out  own      P

  page     part     past     perfect  place    possible power    Q        quite    R  remember

  S        seen     sense    set      share    so       still    such     T  take     than

  that     the      their    them     then     there    therefore        these  they     things

  this     those    thought  thoughts through  thus     to       today    too      U  until

  up       upon     us       use      V        very     vi       vii      W  want     was

  we       well     were     what     when     where    which    while    who  whole    why

  will     with     within   without  would    X        Y        yet      you  your     yours

      Z


                   

 

Spelling Adjustments

 

A number of words in the Urtext are spelled in more than one way.  For efficiency in look-up it seems to make sense to always spell any given word the same way.  It should be pointed out that there is nothing wrong with most of these spellings; they aren’t “errors.”  They are simply common alternative spellings.  For the purpose of a concordance, a single spelling for each word makes look-up easier for users. To fully standardize spelling with the most common US usage at the time, there are additional words which probably should be changed: notably “cancelled” should probably be “canceled.”  However, we only went to work on those in which more than one spelling of the same word was used.  And even then we may have missed some.

 

The following words are spelled as shown:

 

1)           cancelling becomes canceling

2)           marshaled becomes marshalled

3)           no one becomes no-one

4)           O becomes Oh

5)           saviour becomes savior

6)           till becomes ‘til

7)           selfsame becomes self-same

8)           re-awaken(s/ed/ing) becomes reawaken(s/ed/ing)

9)           re-inforce becomes reinforce

10)       re-inforcement becomes reinforcement

11)       re-interpretor becomes reinterpreter

12)       thru becomes through

13)       towards becomes toward

14)       whisp becomes wisp

 

Variant Readings

 

In many instances the Urtext manuscripts contain handwritten mark-up which indicates changes to wording, spelling, or paragraph breaks.  In the e-texts and print editions these variants are [or at least should be] all footnoted so the reader can readily identify those passages for which there is more than one reading present in the manuscripts.

 

The previous Concordances included these footnotes.  However, they increase the screen clutter, complexity and learning curve while reducing the effectiveness of the tool for quick look-up and phrase searching.  The footnotes indicating the variant readings have thus been omitted from this concordance.  Where there are variant readings, only one can be included in the base text.  The one selected for inclusion is the one deemed most likely to be the most authentic.  Since many of these “authenticity evaluations” are highly subjective, preliminary, and almost certainly sometimes mistaken, the user is advised to refer to the actual manuscript facsimiles and/or the e-text to verify the precision of any particular reading and determine if a particular passage has variants.  In short, due to the handwritten mark-up, the exact reading is sometimes indeterminate. 

 

The Exhaustive HTML Concordances which are larger do not leave out so many common words.  They are available on separate CDs.  Currently we have Concordances for the Hugh Lynn Cayce version and the Urtext version.  Concordances for the Shorthand Notes and the FIP Second Edition are currently being prepared and we project availability to be late 2009.  The goal is to offer a complete “family” of Historical Scribal Versions in accurate print and e-text accurate copies with Concordances.

 

The “Full” Concordance

 

This Concordance was made with “Concordance™” software by R.J.C. Watt.  This software is available from http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/   You can download a 30 day free trial at that URL.

 

By adding this software to the databases we can supply, (currently for the HLC and the Urtext and eventually for the Notes and FIP versions) you get a vastly more powerful, flexible, textual analysis and reporting tool with capabilities far greater than those provided by the HTML Concordance.

 

The learning curve and price tag (US$100) for the full Concordance software may strike some as a bit steep.  The serious student of this material is as needful of this software as the carpenter is needful of a hammer and a saw.  Yes, you can “get by” without such tools but with them you can soar!

 

In the near future I hope to have a functional “demo” of what the full Concordance software can do.  At the moment that’s one of 84 things on my “to do” list.

 

The HTML concordances are useful, available and inexpensive, but really offer only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible, today, in ACIM textual analysis tools.

 

How this was done and where we’re going next

 

It is certainly my sincerest wish to make all of these tools available on the net to everyone for free.  I fully expect that day will come.  With your help it might come sooner.

 

There are essentially two ways that projects of this kind can be “sustainable.”  One is the “market model” in which commercial sales fund the research and development and labour costs and the other is “donor model” in which love offerings from those who wish to see the work proceed pay the bills and help pay for the tens of thousands of hours of labour that projects such as this require.

 

To date I’ve gone both routes, selling copies out the back door while holding down a full time job.  At a guess, something like 90% of expenses have been covered by the later … what we might call my own “love offerings.”  While I begrudge this not a whit I am also very intimately aware of the limitations imposed on “what can be done” if “what is done” depends solely on my own personal resources of time and treasure.  This is in no way to be understood as a lack of appreciation for those many people whose donations over the years have helped this project along.  It is simply to point out that the resources required to do it well in a timely manner vastly exceed the resources which have so far been available.  The result is that it’s taken a long time and in some cases the quality and accuracy is not what it eventually will be when the resources for adequate proofing finally become available.

 

I work afternoons and evenings to pay the bills and in the mornings this project advances.  So it has been for seven years.  There is no one more aware than I that this project is way, way bigger than me and requires resources of all kinds far beyond what I can personally provide!  There is no one more aware than I that if it depends on my own personal resources alone, it will continue to move forward at glacial speed.

 

What you see here presently is the result mostly of one man’s part-time work over seven years.  If you consider the result worth-while and wish to see it advance more quickly I would ask you to consider contributing your prayers, your time, and your treasure.  Your help WILL make a difference.  Just think how much BETTER it could be if it was being done and funded my MORE than one man, part time?