Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 August 28

= August 28 =

Correlate
My PDF of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy (Ed. Willis Whitehead, 1898) uses the words "correlate" and "experiment" in a footnote in Chapter XI (page 63). It seems like a modern terminology. How can I find if the footnote was added later on? It must be, as "correlate" is only attested from the mid 1800's. Schyler  ( exquirere bonum ipsum ) 02:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The term "correlation" has been around for at least 450 years, and the modern use since at least 1879. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:05, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * 1560 is still 30 years after the work in question. I am still under the assumption the footnote was added. How can I find who added it and when? Is there a special library for this sort of thing? Schyler  ( exquirere bonum ipsum ) 02:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume this is the edition and footnote that you're referring to? In general, you could look at the preface or editorial notes to see whether they say anything about footnotes; here, they don't. You could try to look at other editions of the same work and check whether the footnote appears there or not. In this case, it seems to suffice to look at a few other footnotes, e.g. p.37: "The author says... At this date Agrippa was...". P.122 is an explanatory footnote, "This was, in all probability, some mineral...". These footnotes were quite clearly added by the editor, Willis Whitehead, and so, in all likelihood, was the one that you're asking about. A good edition will clearly distinguish between footnotes by the original author and footnotes by the editor. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:55, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I quite agree, adding that Agrippa wrote in Latin. According to the editor's preface (p. 13):
 * The only English translation appeared in London in 1651. It is a thoroughly edited and revised edition of this latter work that we produce. Some translating has been done and missing parts supplied. The reader is assured that while we have modified some of the very broad English of the seventeenth century, that he has a thoroughly valid work.
 * So while the meaning of the footnote in question might possibly be used to date it, its individual words can't be. --Antiquary (talk) 09:44, 28 August 2018 (UTC)