I don't have any of the experience you do Paul, but my limited
experience with 'messy' handwriting is mostly from seeing how
present-day folks (LDS volunteers, I believe) transcribed the Ellis
Island immigrant ship manifests so poorly...because 1) they couldn't
make out the 'old fashioned' writing (I doubt many of those volunteers
were experienced with it), and 2) I imagine most were not familiar with
European (foreign) names...so did their best at guessing What the
name/word was.  Of course, then there were the folks who recorded the
info from the immigrants in the first place - they couldn't spell half
the names correctly either.  Many of my relatives names, place of
origin, etc. are badly misspelled on those documents.  Only creative
guessing as to what it might have been written as allowed me to Find
several (I probably missed some).  And then...one has to take into
account if the person writing stuff down can even spell well...or has a
hearing problem (especially listening to a foreign word with no
familiarity of that language/accent).

When I saw estate lists that had "pair of stillards"...right next to
other equipment that one finds on those other lists with "pair of
shillards"...it seemed very obvious to me that this was a transcription
error (or perhaps auditory?)...not some new type of implement we hadn't
encountered before.  It is just too similar.  But it is hard to imagine
how a 't' could get mistaken for an 'h'...but, some people don't cross
all their t's...and the script was more loopy ('technical term' ha) back
then.

But sure, it's always best to not jump to conclusions too quickly...but
check numerous examples first.

Carol

>-----Original Message-----
>From: paul courtney [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
>Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 2:09 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: mystery object: "Pair of Shillards"
>
>
>My experience of having read tens of thousands of historical documents 
>in court and secretary hand tells me that the chances of finding a new 
>word or artefact are virtually zero. These difficult words are 
>inavariably spelling variations or as Tasha points out 
>mistranscriptions. It is thus far more likely that  a pair of 
>shillards 
>is a pair of stilyards than an unknown artefact. Obviously you can't 
>prove it but this isn't physics - as I say try transcribing a medieval 
>latin document where the words are abbreviated and m, n, u and 
>i are all 
>reduced to minims (iii etc), you have to rely heavily on 
>experience and 
>knowing what a word is likely to be. Context within a documenta and 
>comparison between documents is the usual key method. Caution 
>is a good 
>thing but if you rely on proof we might as well throw most historical 
>documents prior to printing in the fire. If I was using this in an 
>article I would quote the original form as a stronger element of 
>interpretation than normal is present but it may well be a 
>transcription 
>problem anyway. Even skilled paleographers have to make intelligent 
>guesses in separating many letter forms, and in medieval latin one of 
>the first things you are taught are likely variant spellings otherwise 
>using a dictionary is impossible.
>