The Tag Glossary: N

Orlando's content is structured by the unique XML tagset described in the Introduction and visualized in the Tag Diagrams. To assist in understanding Search result facets and Tag Search, this Glossary provides definitions for tags and attributes (descriptors associated with tags). Some attributes have set values. These are often explained within definitions of attributes. Other attribute values, such as genre names, are defined within the ontologies of the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory, which hosts Orlando’s production environment. Searches on this page retrieve tags, attributes, and definitions, but not necessarily attribute values.

A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T V W

Name Connotation

Machine name
NAMECONNOTATION
Value
Abusive
Honorific


This term is an optional attribute found in BIOGRAPHY > PERSONNAME > NICKNAME. Its values, abusive and honorific, distinguish between nicknames for women writers that were either meant to satirize and insult or were intended to honour. For example, Constance Gore-Booth was known in the press by the nickname of Red Countess and this nickname had negative connotations. We hope to help researchers trace the way gender operates to both abuse and honour women writers through the application of nicknames.

Name of person

Machine name
NAME


NAME is a global element, available wherever typing is valid, i.e. in CHRONPROSE and <P>. It is used to track people across our history of women's writing. We have tried to use as Standard form the one preferred by the subject of the entry or by her contemporaries. Nevertheless Standard has sometimes to be a cumbersome peerage title (Byron, George Gordon,,, sixth Baron). N.b. triple comma there. The tag contains only the name of a person and excludes any extraneous information or punctuation (Dr, Mrs, etc.). The contents of the NAME element will not only be used to link and to index people but to draw attention to the relationships among people, based on the appearance of names in bio-critical documents, in chronology events, and according to proximity searches across the project.

Name Signifier

Machine name
NAMESIGNIFIER
Value
Romance
Cryptic
Local


NAMESIGNIFIER, an attribute attached to the elements NICKNAME, PSEUDONYM, and SELFCONSTRUCTED (sub-tags of PERSONNAME in the Biography section of entries), is used to distinguish the way such names derive their significance, with values of cryptic, local, and romance, according to whether the name signifies a hidden meaning (for instance, a variant or anagram of the writer’s own name), a geographical location or association, or reference to the romance tradition.

Cryptic is used to designate names that are deliberately obscure. Cryptic names mostly have lexical meaning such as A Housewife, A Lover of her Sex, or A Placid Reader. It follows that personal names are not usually cryptic, with the exception of those borrowed from a fictional character (like Portia, or like Henrietta Battier’s calling herself Patt. Pindar, Pat. T.Pindar and similar, with a complex allusion). The Author of . . .  is not a nickname and has occasionally been listed as a pseudonym.

Local is used when the person is known by a geographic connotation, for example "Julian of Norwich, Ann of Swansea." Romance is used in cases where a name is associated with writing romances, or with romantic writing, for example Stella, Fidelia, Rosa Matilda.

Name Type

Machine name
NAMETYPE
Value
Other
Literary
Familiar


NAMETYPE is a field in the Bibliography Database which functions in a very similar way to AUTHORNAMETYPE in WRITING sections of entries: it distinguishes between different kinds of authorship, such as anonymous and pseudonymous texts; texts claimed by allusion to other texts; and those authored by more than a single hand. The NAMETYPE field in the Bibliography Database differs in offering two further options: Used and Doubtful (issues which the schema deals with in different ways).

National heritage

Machine name
NATIONALHERITAGE
Attributes
Current alternative term
Forebear
Regularization
Self-defined


This sub-tag is available within BIOGRAPHY > CULTURALFORMATION. It could also be within NATIONALITYISSUE or RACEANDETHNICITY to signify a legal nationality not held by the subject of the entry but by one or more of her ancestors, either immediate or distant (if the family is still aware of this heritage). Normally encloses just one word. NationalityHeritage captures information about the nationality of a person's family which contributes to an understanding of their racial and ethnic background. With value Welsh it might record a writer’s emotional connection with Wales despite birth and lifelong residence in England. It gestures towards hyphenated identities such as Japanese-Canadian. While Joy Kogawa's nationality is Canadian, her national heritage is Japanese. See RACEANDETHNICITY for a detailed description of the complexities of this element. It has optional attributes of CURRENTALTERNATIVETERM, FOREBEAR, SELF-DEFINED, and REG. REG represents the national heritage in a more precise or standardised way, whether or not the prose has done so. FOREBEAR provides a means of attributing this heritage to an individual, recognizing an Irish grandmother for instance.

Nationality

Machine name
NATIONALITY
Attributes
Current alternative term
Regularization
Self-defined


This sub-tag is used to signify the entry subject’s legal nationality and is is available only with BIOGRAPHY > CULTURALFORMATION. Within those tags, it also may or may not be within NATIONALITYISSUE. It normally encloses a single word. May be used several times in cases of dual or serial nationality. N.b. For the purpose of this tag English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish can be used as alternatives to British as if they were (already!!) actual nationalities. This element has optional attributes, CURRENTALTERNATIVETERM, SELFDEFINED, and REG, which expresses the nationality in a standard form if it has not been done in the prose, or when an obsolete or local term (like Hibernian for Irish) has been used in a source. NATIONALITY might be placed not only in NATIONALITY ISSUE but also, if it fits the prose account, within any of the other sub-elements available in CULTURALFORMATION: CLASSISSUE, RACEANDETHNICITY, RACEISSUE, GEOGHERRITAGE, NATIONALHERRITAGE, POLITICALAFFILIATION, ETHNICITY, RELIGION, GENDERISSUE, and SEXUALITY.

Nationality issue

Machine name
NATIONALITYISSUE


Parallel to CLASSISSUE: for contested or changing legal nationality. A significant sub-element within CULTURALFORMATION (in the BIOGRAPHY section of entries), it works in conjunction with the NATIONALITY element to structure the national subject positions of women writers. Used, containing a full sentence or clause, to discuss issues of importance around a woman's nationality as it impinges upon identity. For the most part, writers will have geographical or ethnic heritage to discuss along with the element NATIONALITYISSUE; as well as the related sub-element of NATIONALITY, you can access here any of the other sub-elements designed for discussion of cultural formation may be relevant here: CLASS, DENOMINATION, ETHNICITY, GEOGHERITAGE, LANGUAGE, NATIONALHERITAGE, POLITICALAFFILIATION, RACECOLOUR, GENDER, and SEXUALIDENTITY.

Nickname

Machine name
NICKNAME
Attributes
Name Connotation
Name Signifier
Name Type
Regularization
Wrote or Published as


This sub-element is available within BIOGRAPHY > PERSONNAME. It records in a DataStruct any nickname applied to a person by others. Nicknames include both casual, familiar family names and professional nicknames. The attributes attached to this element allow us to distinguish the different types of nicknames. We are particularly interested in honorific or abusive nicknames that are gendered, for example Queen of Romance for Barbara Cartland.

We don’t record every Elizabeth whose family called her Lizzy or Betty or Bess unless the nickname had wide circulation. But Elizabeth Montagu’s family calling her Fidget is interesting, and her public nickname (Queen of the Blues) is, like Swan of Lichfield, White Rose of Gask, etc., a significant phenomenon in the reception of women writers.

It has attributes: NAMECONNOTATION, NAMESIGNIFIER, NAMETYPE (three which variously signify the type of nickname), and WROTEORPUBLISHEDAS.

Attribute NAMECONNOTATION on NICKNAME: Carries more of RESPONSE in it than NAMESIGNIFIER.

Attribute NAMESIGNIFIER on NICKNAME: Comparable to use elsewhere.

Attribute NAMETYPE on NICKNAME: Other would fit Red Countess nickname, since it stems from politics, not family or writing.

Non-print media

Machine name
PNONBOOKMEDIA


This element belongs conceptually with WRITING > PRODUCTION. It refers to a non-textual packaging/format of a written work. If someone adapts a woman's book into an opera, a film, a sound recording or a dance, it is recorded here. PNONBOOKMEDIA captures either a word or more frequently a full statement. There are no mandatory sub-elements or attributes for this element.

Non-survival (of writing)

Machine name
PNONSURVIVAL
Attributes
Type of Non-survival


This element belongs conceptually within WRITING > PRODUCTION. It addresses texts that we do not have today for some reason or another. Describes any mishaps or disasters that happen on the road to publication. If the manuscript burned, or flew out the stage coach window; if the work was unfinished; if the publishers went bankrupt and lost her manuscript; if nobody knows what became of it: all of these incidents can be recorded here. Encloses a statement; used with or without also using rDestructionofWork. PNONSURVIVAL can be used of actual destruction (a manuscript casualty of fire or flood, a single surviving copy seen but since lost) or absence of knowledge (she claimed to have written plays, but none appears to have survived). One attribute modifies this element: TYPEOFNONSURVIVAL, with values for accident, and unknown.

Number

Machine name
NUMBER


Number is an optional attribute attached to CHILDREN (within FAMILY, in the BIOGRAPHY section of entries) which records the figure (only) for the number of children that a writer had. From the mother’s point of view, so include stillborn or short-lived babies.